Waiver of Right to Arbitrate

While state courts have been busy articulating novel interpretations of arbitration law this summer, federal courts seem intent on getting back to basics.  In recent weeks, federal appellate courts have reminded parties who has the burden of proving an agreement to arbitrate, what should happen to the case when arbitration gets compelled, how parties waive

Continuing last week’s theme of “States Gone Wild,” here are three more oddball summer decisions from state supreme courts. All of them find interesting paths around federal case law (IMHO).

Georgia Says Class Complaint Is Deemed Arbitration Opt Out For All Class Members

In Bickerstaff v. SunTrust Bank, 2016 WL 3693778 (Ga. July 8,

Today’s post is brought to you by the number 8.  The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a new opinion yesterday finding that a defendant who litigated in court for 8 months waived its right to arbitrate (aka, ARBITR8) plaintiff’s employment claims.  [That could be my vanity plate!!]

Messina v. North Central

Lots of interesting arbitration law has been made already in 2016, so here is a roundup from the first four weeks of the year. As a teaser, courts have breathed life into the effective vindication doctrine, found arbitrators cannot determine the availability of class actions, and found state laws not preempted.  More surprisingly, state courts

Before I can sum up 2015 in arbitration (next post!), I need to report on some new cases coming out of the federal and state appellate courts in recent weeks.  Two are just good reminders of basic arbitration law, but the third addresses an interesting question of double recovery.

Our first “reminder” case comes from

The issue in analyzing whether a party waived its right to arbitrate is usually whether the defendant waited too long to assert the arbitration obligation.  But, this week the Second Circuit had the opportunity to address whether a plaintiff waives its right to arbitrate by the simple fact of bringing a case in court.

In

Three federal appellate courts recently affirmed lower courts’ refusal to compel arbitration.  These cases show that the federal policy favoring arbitration is not absolute – the parties must have agreed to arbitrate the claims at issue and the defendant cannot have waived its right to arbitrate by engaging in significant discovery and motion practice.

In

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