No haunted house can scare general counsel as much as an opinion invalidating their company’s arbitration clause and thereby allowing a class action to proceed. So, here is a Halloween tale for all to keep in mind.
Ralphs Grocery Company hired Zenia Chavarria to work in the deli of one of its grocery stores. Ms.
After reading more than 40 decisions about arbitration from state high courts, issued just in the past eight months, I have two bits of wisdom to share. First, that is not the best way to spend your summer vacation, even for a devoted arbitration nerd. And second, there are arbitration issues percolating in state courts
Within weeks of its issuance, SCOTUS’s Sutter decision is already making an impact on other cases. Both the Eleventh Circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals cite Sutter repeatedly in recent decisions that refuse to vacate arbitration awards. Of course, new decisions are not the only ones that reverberate: Concepcion, a 2011 decision, was
The Fourth Circuit issued a bold new arbitration decision last week, sending a putative class of shuttle drivers to arbitration while expanding its application of SCOTUS’ Concepcion decision beyond cases involving federal preemption of state arbitration law. Muriithi v. Shuttle Express, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 1287859 (4th Cir. 2013).
Muriithi was a
In most cases, if this blog mentions Concepcion, it means that a court has found a state statute or line of decisions is preempted by the FAA. A Maryland rule, however, recently ran the Concepcion gauntlet and survived. See Noohi v. Toll Bros., Inc., __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 680690 (4th Cir. Feb. 26,
A recent decision from a federal district court in Tennessee raises a discrepancy in how the courts treat arbitration agreements that hinder a plaintiff’s state law and federal law claims. Cases under the FAA state that arbitration agreements cannot be enforced if enforcement means plaintiffs will not be able to effectively vindicate their federal statutory
Three state law decisions relating to arbitration were toppled recently, based on application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s preemption decision in Concepcion.
In Kilgore v. Keybank, __ F.3d __, 2012 WL 718344 (9th Cir. Mar. 7, 2012), the Ninth Circuit held that California case law, which precluded arbitration of claims asking for public injunctive
The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals’ decision from last June, holding that pre-dispute arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts will not be enforced in that state. The content of the decision is not surprising, as it relies on notions of federal preemption and follows the analysis in Concepcion
As we pile up the cardboard boxes that held holiday gifts for the recycling truck and select our new year’s resolutions for 2012, here are a few reflections on the last twelve months in arbitration law. I would summarize it as another year where the U.S. Supreme Court was playing whack-a-mole, trying to tamp