Articles Posted in Arbitration

The parties agreed to arbitrate plaintiff’s action for personal injuries arising from a car accident. Prior to agreeing to arbitrate, defendant’s insurance carrier informed plaintiff’s counsel that the policy bodily injury limits were 100,000/300,000. The arbitration agreement included a high-low provision that would restrict any award to an amount of nothing to $50,000. Thereafter (presumably after realizing that term), plaintiff’s counsel refused to arbitrate claiming that he had been mistaken about the policy’s limitations. Supreme Court refused to compel arbitration.

In reversing, the Second Department reiterated the well-settled rule that arbitration agreements are governed by ordinary contract rules. For plaintiff to vitiate the arbitration agreement based on unilateral mistake would require a showing of fraud or wrongful conduct by the other party. To rescind the agreement would require to demonstrate that ordinary care was used.

Finding neither element in this case, the Second Department mandated arbitration.

As outlined by the United States Supreme Court, the petitioner, Robyn Morgan, worked at a Taco Bell franchise owned by respondent Sundance. When applying for a job, Morgan signed an agreement to arbitrate any employment dispute. Despite that agreement, Morgan filed a class action asserting that Sundance had violated federal law regarding overtime payment. Sundance initially defended against the lawsuit as if no arbitration agreement existed, filing a motion to dismiss and engaging in mediation. Some eight months after Morgan filed the lawsuit, Sundance moved to stay the litigation and compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Morgan opposed, arguing that Sundance had waived its right to arbitrate by litigating for so long. “The courts below applied precedent, under which a party waives its right to arbitration if it knew of the right; ‘acted inconsistently with that right’; and ‘prejudiced the other party by its inconsistent actions.’”

The Supreme Court held that the FAA made no provision for prejudice. From the decision’s syllabus—“Section 6 of the FAA provides that any application under the statute—including an application to stay litigation or compel arbitration—“shall be made and heard in the manner provided by law for the making and hearing of motions” (unless the statute says otherwise). A directive to treat arbitration applications ‘in the manner provided by law’ for all other motions is simply a command to apply the usual federal procedural rules, including any rules relating to a motion’s timeliness. Because the usual federal rule of waiver does not include a prejudice requirement, Section 6 instructs that prejudice is not a condition of finding that a party waived its right to stay litigation or compel arbitration under the FAA.” Waiver is the “intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right” and in considering that, “the court focuses on the actions of the person who held the right” not the actions of the opposing party. As such, prejudice would be irrelevant. “Stripped of its prejudice requirement, the Eighth Circuit’s current waiver inquiry would focus on Sundance’s conduct. Did Sundance, as the rest of the Eighth Circuit’s test asks, knowingly relinquish the right to arbitrate by acting inconsistently with that right?”

Interestingly, when considering issues concerning arbitration, courts across the country routinely discuss how agreements to arbitrate, and arbitration, are favored. Yet, the court here noted that “federal policy is about treating arbitration contracts like all others, not about fostering arbitration.” In that light, contract or procedural rules are not to be modified for arbitrations.

In a case between Northrop Grumman and the Republic of Venezuela, the courts were faced with the issue of compelling arbitration in a venue other than the one the parties had agreed to. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision to compel arbitration in a venue other than Venezuela.

As relevant to this discussion, the facts involved an agreement between the parties, entered into before Hugo Chavez came to power, that called for the arbitration of any disputes in Caracas, Venezuela. Some time later, in the face of a dispute and believing that it would not get a fair shake in Venezuela, Northrop Grumman sought to compel arbitration in another location. Finding arbitration in Venezuela to be impractical due to the political situation, the arbitration proceeded in Brazil. There, Northrop Grumman was awarded $128 million.

In granting Northrop Grumman’s motion to enforce that award, the court rejected Venezuela’s argument that venue was improperly changed. Its appeal followed.

Plaintiff Cooper worked for a company (“DST”) which offered a profit sharing plain in which Cooper participated. The plan had two pools of funds, one which included contributions of the employee, which were partially matched by DST, and a profit sharing account (the “PSA”), to which only DST contributed. DST’s employees were automatically enrolled in the PSA and were obligate to keep those funds in the account for so long as they remained employees.

DST hired an advisor, Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb, to manage the PSA funds, with complete investment discretion, but overseen by DST. The PSA was covered by ERISA regulations which required periodic disclosure of summary descriptions of the employees’ rights thereunder. These descriptions made no mention of arbitration in event of any dispute. DST employees also received investment information and updates about the PSA investments.

All of the employees received a handbook which included that all employment related disputes were to be adjudicated in arbitration. That provision excluded, among other things, ERISA relate claims.

“Questions of arbitrability” cover the scope of a dispute and address whether “parties are bound by a given arbitration clause,” and if an agreement to arbitrate “applies to a particular controversy.” The question of whether a matter is required to be arbitrated or whether a party is obligated to arbitrate a dispute, “is generally an issue for judicial determination.” However, “when the parties’ agreement specifically incorporates by reference the rules of” the arbitration panel and states that “all disputes” are to be decided by arbitration, “courts will leave the question of arbitrability to the arbitrators.” In this case, AAA was the denominated panel, and the parties’ agreement provided that any controversy or claim arising out of or relative to the agreement was to be submitted to the AAA. As such, the court determined that the questions or “issues of arbitrability” were for the arbitrators to decide.

Bromberg & Liebowitz v O’Brien

We have discussed cases where the costs of arbitrating a dispute were so prohibitive that the First Department voided the arbitration agreement.

In a recent Federal decision out of Texas, a court modified an arbitration agreement’s cost and venue provisions, relieving a party from some of the costs she would otherwise have been obligated to pay.

As part of her employment, plaintiff agreed to arbitrate any claims arising from her employ. She commenced suit against her employer alleging wage and labor claims. The employer sought to compel arbitration. There was no dispute that the employee signed an arbitration agreement that covered her asserted claims. Instead, the employee argued that the agreement was unenforceable because it’s cost-splitting and venue provisions rendered it “substantively unconscionable.” The employer countered that the provisions were reasonable but if they were not, the court could sever those provisions while still compelling arbitration.

After an extensive selection process to select arbitrators, and 10 hearings over 19 months, defendant sought an injunction to stay the continuation of an AAA arbitration and to disqualify the remaining two arbitrators. At a point prior to that, the panel chair disclosed that his daughter-in-law was an attorney working for the same firm that was representing plaintiff. Not seeing a conflict, the other panel members supported the chair’s efforts to stay on the panel. After defendant objected, the AAA removed the chair from the panel, but not the “wing” arbitrators.

Defendant sought to disqualify those two remaining panel members because they did not agree to disqualify the chair and were thus “compromised by their improper participation” in the chair’s disclosure process and efforts to stay on the panel, which purportedly demonstrated their impartiality against defendant. It appears from the decision that defendant was not just complaining about the chair’s discussion with the other two arbitrators about the conflict and his resignation, but their knowledge that defendant challenged their partiality, all of which rendered them unfit to continue as arbitrators.

After noting that the AAA had the final say about disqualification of arbitrators, and did not bar the type of discussion of which defendant complained, the court held that defendant was not entitled to the injunction finding “neither the appearance [of] nor ‘probable partiality.’” Reiterating the reluctance of courts to interfere in a pending arbitration, especially as AAA rules and procedure were on point to the issues of which defendant complained, the court rejected defendant’s argument that the disqualified arbitrator somehow poisoned the remaining two. The court underscored its opinion of defendant’s application by pointing out that defendant’s concern about the remaining arbitrators’ opinion of defendant was entirely of its own making in that until the lawsuit was filed those two arbitrators were not aware that defendant was challenging their role as the remaining arbitrators. The court closed its opinion by rejecting the remaining claims of bias asserted by defendant and reminding defendant that it could object to the panel’s decision in court.

A client sued its law firm for malpractice. The law firm commenced an arbitration addressed to its unpaid fees, as required by the parties’ retainer agreement. The client sought to stay the arbitration pending the outcome of the lawsuit while the law firm attempted to stay the lawsuit pending the outcome of the arbitration.

Finding that no question existed as to the arbitrable nature of the legal fees, the lawsuit would be stayed while the arbitration progressed because “where ‘arbitrable and nonarbitrable claims are inextricably interwoven, the proper course is to stay judicial proceedings pending completion of the arbitration, particularly where . . . the determination of issues in arbitration may well dispose of nonarbitrable matters.’” The court then addressed the fact that no arbitration agreement was ever signed addressed to the client’s malpractice claims, stating “[t]o the extent plaintiff argues that it cannot be forced to arbitrate its malpractice claim because it did not explicitly agree to do so, both the First and Second Departments have clearly found that a nonarbitrable issue can be decided in an arbitration when it is inextricably intertwined with an arbitrable issue, particularly where, as here, the determination of the arbitrable unpaid fees claim may dispose of the nonarbitrable malpractice claim.”

Protostorm, Inc. v. Foley & Lardner LLP

Plaintiff and a China-based manufacturer and its Georgia-based subsidiary executed an NDA to develop a specialty LED light bulb. The parties ended up going their own way with each developing their own LED bulb.

Plaintiff thereafter alleged that the Chinese company and its subsidiary had breached the NDA and, pursuant to the terms of the parties’ NDA, commenced an arbitration before the AAA in North Carolina. In 2019, the AAA panel awarded plaintiff some $3 million. Plaintiff filed a petition to confirm the award, serving the Petition by email and Federal Express, upon counsel and the subsidiary’s registered agent.

Defendants moved to dismiss the Petition, arguing they were not properly served under the Federal Rules of Procedure, the Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”), or the Hague Convention. Plaintiff responded by noting that in the NDA the parties had agreed to comply with the rules of the AAA, and that those rules permitted service as made by plaintiff—by email and upon a representative. Plaintiff also argued that defendants had actual notice of the Petition which, under the FAA, was a critical issue in determining whether service would be upheld.

In a recent case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed an appeal based on the parties’ waiver of any right to an appeal.

A doctor that at one point was associated with Beckley Oncology Associates (“BOA”) filed an arbitration against BOA claiming that he was owed money. The arbitration was to proceed in accordance with the parties’ agreement, which included the provision that the arbitrator’s decision would be final and enforceable in court “without any right of judicial review or appeal.”

The doctor was awarded $167,030. BOA filed a lawsuit seeking to vacate that award. The lower court refused, dismissing the complaint and confirming the award, finding that the Federal Arbitration Act precluded a party’s ability to waive judicial review of an arbitration award.

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