Today I present a collection of recent state and federal appellate court decisions that vacate or un-vacate arbitration awards. The seven opinions below emphasize how difficult it is to prove that an arbitrator exceeded his or her power and suggest that the surest way to vacate an arbitration award is still by presenting evidence that
The Fifth Circuit un-vacated an arbitration award last week, holding the district court had wrongly concluded that the court was the proper decision-maker on contract formation. Although courts are presumptively authorized to decide whether an arbitration agreement exists, the Fifth Circuit found the parties altered that presumption by “submitting, briefing, and generally disputing that issue
“When an arbitration goes an opponent’s way on the basis of questionable contract interpretation, parties often seek refuge in [Section] 10(a)(4). But the Supreme Court has made clear that district courts’ review of arbitrators’ awards under [that Section] is limited to the ‘sole question… of whether the arbitrator (even arguably) interpreted the parties contract.'”
Those
Because of the strong federal policy favoring arbitration, and cases providing that any doubt about the scope of an arbitration agreement must be resolved in favor of arbitration, it is uncommon to find a decision holding that the parties’ claims are not within the scope of their arbitration agreement. But, the Supreme Court of Alabama
Two posts ago, I reviewed four recent cases in which appellate courts enforced arbitration awards that district courts had refused to enforce. Today I review two more appellate courts coming to the rescue of arbitration, this time by confirming arbitration awards that had been vacated by lower courts.
In SPX Corp. v. Garda USA