Waiver of Right to Arbitrate

This week marks the third anniversary of this blog devoted to interpretations of the Federal Arbitration Act.  (Here’s the first post.)  After 155 posts, can there possibly be more to say?  Yes, indeed.  Three new opinions from federal courts of appeals demonstrate how new issues keep “cropping” up in arbitration law each week.

The

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. 

California is the Judd Nelson of The Preemption Club.  (Or the John Bender, if you prefer using character names.)  The Supreme Court has sent the California courts to preemption detention for ignoring the Federal Arbitration Act in blockbuster, groundbreaking cases (see Concepcion).  But California cannot help itself.  It keeps coming up with novel arguments

In January of this year, the Eighth Circuit was the first federal appellate court to refuse to adopt the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling on class action waivers in employment contracts.  (The previous year, in D.R. Horton, the NLRB declared it a violation of federal labor law for employers to require employees to waive their

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 Ninth Circuit ruled this week that a class of car owners could pursue their court claims against the manufacturer, Toyota, for product defects and false advertising, despite the existence of an arbitration agreement in each of the owners’ purchase agreements with the car dealerships.  The court held that Toyota had not proven either of

The Tenth Circuit this week refused to consider a plaintiff’s substantive arguments about its right to arbitrate because it found abstention was appropriate under the Colorado River doctrine.  D.A. Osguthorpe Family P’ship v. ASC Utah, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 150221 (10th Cir. Jan. 15, 2013).  Though the factual situation in Osguthorpe is

In contrast to recent decisions from other circuit courts, the Fourth Circuit found a defendant did not waive its right to arbitrate, despite litigating for more than 6 months and conducting discovery.  Rota-McLarty v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2012 WL 5936033 (4th Cir. Nov. 28, 2012).

In this potential class

In answer to the proverbial question “how much litigation waives the right to arbitrate?,” the Third Circuit has responded that ten months does the trick, if the party seeking arbitration has engaged in significant motion practice, regardless of whether any discovery was exchanged. In re Pharmacy Benefit Managers Antitrust Litig., __ F.3d __, 2012