Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Ninth Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s decision compelling arbitration of claims brought by the estate of Michael Jackson that a confidentiality agreement entered into as part of a 1992 feature retained vitality years letter when HBO aired a documentary that disclosed information regarding Jackson’s personal life. Noting that the merits of the estate’sContinue reading “Ninth Circuit Orders Arbitration Of Claim That HBO Violated Confidentiality Agreement Regarding Michael Jackson”

Teresa Santin of Brouse McDowell has this informative article in Lexology explaining under applicable law the ways to ensure an arbitration provision does (or does not) encompass disputes that arise prior to the date of the arbitration agreement.

A California District Court has provided an imprimatur to the American Arbitration Association to determine, in the absence of a contract directive, which of its rules apply to arbitration matters it administers. In Hagan v. Park Miller LLC individual investors brought an arbitration against their investment adviser pursuant to an agreement which provided for arbitrationContinue reading “Court Defers To Arbitration Administrator To Determine Applicable Rules”

A Texas appeals court has reversed a trial court’s orders compelling post-arbitration discovery designed to obtain evidence regarding ostensible conflicts of the arbitrator. During the arbitration, a party objected to the arbitrator’s continued service on the ground that decades previously he attended law school and served on the law review with one of the opposingContinue reading “Court Denies Party’s Attempt To Conduct Post-Arbitration Discovery Of Alleged Arbitrator Conflicts”

David Reif shares the following cringeworthy arbitration morass in his “go to” blog: “Judge Rosenthal refers to the proceedings surrounding Sullivan v. Feldman, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 227774 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 4, 2020) as “the Bleak House of arbitration.”  The case involves, by the judge’s count, twenty-one parties spread across six different arbitrations in front of six differentContinue reading “Arbitration Is Efficient….Or Not”

In Byars v. Asbury Management Services, LLC, a Mississippi District Court denied a motion by a former employer defendant to compel arbitration of claims brought by a former employee. Even though the employee had executed an arbitration agreement tendered by her employer, the employer had failed to sign the agreement. As the court noted, “[t]heContinue reading “Employer’s Failure To Sign Arbitration Agreement Dooms Its Motion To Compel”

Litigation pending before a federal district court in Minnesota provides a next chapter in the response to consumer contracts that prevent class arbitrations. Those following these developments have seen in the past couple of years law firms filing numerous individual claims, each small in amount, which have served to impose upon the defendants substantial arbitrationContinue reading “Federal Court Approves The Mass Filing Of Individual Consumer Arbitrations”

A California appellate court has refused to enforce a contractual arbitration provision “because the clause is as inconspicuous as a frog in a thicket of water lilies.” As the court explained in Domestic Linen Supply Company, Inc. v. LJT Flowers, Inc., “Here the trial court could reasonably determine that there was no agreement to arbitrate.Continue reading “Frogs, Water Lilies and Arbitration”

In Ali v. Daylight Transport, LLC, a California appellate court determined that a proposed class action lawsuit brought by truckers claiming that they were misclassified as independent contractors and thus denied certain employment benefits was not subject to arbitration, for the reason that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable and unenforceable. For interested practitioners, the opinionContinue reading “California Court Rejects Arbitration Provision As Unconscionable”

In this article, published in Lexology, Leah Mintz of Duane Morris tees up this week’s United States Supreme Court argument in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc. redux, as the Court continues to provide direction on whether arbitrability questions are to be determined by courts or arbitrators.