A new case from the Sixth Circuit addresses whether accountants who are resolving a dispute about payments made under an agreement can also make legal determinations about the same agreement. In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit held that the scope of the dispute clause is broad enough to allow the accountants to resolve contract

In recent weeks, four federal and state appellate courts have vacated district court decisions that denied motions to compel arbitration.  The courts seem to be saying to defendants with arbitration agreements: don’t worry if you lose in the trial court, we will be your Tim Howard and save you from the gaping jaws of litigation. 

Because courts apply a presumption of arbitrability when they analyze whether particular claims fall within the scope of an arbitration clause, and arbitration clauses are generally drafted very broadly, I don’t usually get to write about courts finding that a dispute falls outside the scope of arbitrable claims.  But this week, both the Second and

A new opinion from the Eleventh Circuit highlights an issue that can be confusing to those encountering FAA case law for the first time: when does the federal presumption of arbitrability apply?  The answer is the presumption only applies to whether the scope of an arbitration agreement is broad enough to encompass the parties’ dispute,

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

The Eleventh Circuit has “ironed out a wrinkle” in Alabama’s arbitration jurisprudence that seemed to find executors outside the scope of arbitration contracts signed by the decedent. 

In Entrekin v. Internal Medicine Assocs. of Dothan, P.A., ___ F.3d __, 2012 WL 3208641 (11th Cir. Aug. 9, 2012), the district court had denied a nursing home’s

Three federal circuit courts have recently looked at the shelf-life of an arbitration agreement.  Can it apply even before the contract is effective?  What about after a successor takes over the relationship?  What if one party unilaterally changes its terms?  The answer is that a properly worded arbitration agreement can apply in all those instances,

Last week the Eleventh Circuit interpreted the scope of the arbitration agreement within a plaintiff’s employment contract to exclude civil claims stemming from her sexual assault by fellow employees.  In doing so, the court may have signaled a discomfort with sending civil claims based on criminal conduct to arbitration. 

In Doe v. Princess Cruise Lines