Court’s Waiver Opinion Provides Guidance To Counsel

For those addressing the issue of waiver of a contractual right to arbitrate, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas’s decision in Spark Connected, LLC v. Semtech Corporation is worth a read. The court’s thorough decision addresses all the major touchstones: pleadings that fail to reference arbitration, a seven month delay, the filing of dispositive motions, institution of discovery, and prejudice.

While any of these issues could have derailed the moving party’s effort to pursue arbitration, the court analyzed each of them in the factual context in which they arose, determining that no waiver had occurred.