Here’s the federal court’s opinion in its entirety in Castro v. Bank of New York Mellon.

This matter is before the Court on Petitioners’ pro se Motion for Reconsideration re Order
Dismissing Case as Frivolous. (Doc. No. 12). Petitioners Mario and Magdalena Castro asserted in their initial application to confirm arbitration award that an arbitration award of more than $1.275 million, entered by an entity known as the Sitcomm Arbitration Association, has been entered against the named Respondents. On May 19, 2020, this Court denied Petitioners’ application and dismissed this action for the reasons stated in Respondents’ brief in opposition. That is, Petitioners are attempting to enforce a non-existent arbitration award, as no binding arbitration agreement exists between the parties. Petitioners have now filed the pending motion for reconsideration, again insisting that the arbitration award is valid. The Court denies the motion, as Respondents have shown in their initial response to the initial application to confirm arbitration award and in their response to the motion for reconsideration that there is no binding arbitration award between the parties.
ORDER
IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED that:
(1) Petitioners’ “pro se Motion for Reconsideration re Order Dismissing Case as Frivolous,
(Doc. No. 12), is DENIED.

The Florida Court of Appeals’ decision in Doe v. Natt and AirBnB, Inc. involves claims by AirBnB guests whose visit was surreptitiously recorded by the property owner. The AirBnB “clickwrap” agreement provided for arbitration, and the opinion provides a detailed analysis regarding whether the court or the arbitrator should determine the arbitrability of the dispute.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a lower court’s order compelling a boxer to arbitrate his claims against the World Boxing Organization based on the agreement’s provisions permitting the WBO to select the arbitrator. In Trout v. Organizacion Mundial De Boxeo, Inc., the court held that, even though the agreement specified that the arbitrator must be “independent”, the court accepted the boxer’s contention that “the arbitration agreement is ‘unreasonable and unjust’ because the arbitrator-selection provision permits the WBO to act as both ‘party and judge.””

Brendan Gooley of Carlton Fields has this article in JDSupra, discussing the Fourth Circuit’s holding in Hill v. Employee Resource Group, LLC, No. 18-2009 (4th Cir. June 9, 2020), in which Mr. Gooley explains the court “declined to compel arbitration in a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) class action with respect to more than 70 employees for whom the defendant employer could not produce signed arbitration agreements due to apparent poor record-keeping.”

“‘AN ANYTHING-GOES SITUATION’: As Deaths From Covid-19 Surge In Nursing Homes, Some Facilities With Histories Of Health Violations Are Asking Patients To Sign Arbitration Agreements.” Ed Williams has this article in Las Cruces Sun News.

In Crider v. GMRI, Inc., the Ohio Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s determination that an employee’s claims arising from and relating to sexual assault by a co-worker fell outside the scope of an arguably broadly worded arbitration provision. Relying on precedent, the court held that the employee’s claims “relating to and arising from the sexual assault exist independent of the employment relationship because they may be ‘maintained without reference to the contract or relationship at issue,'” and that “ongoing verbal and physical contact culminating in sexual assault as well as retaliation, harassment, or other detrimental acts against [plaintiff] based on the unlawful conduct is not a foreseeable result of the employment.”

“Sixth Circuit Affirms Ruling That Arbitrator Is to Determine Arbitrability of Employment Dispute Between Franchise Employees and Domino’s.” Carlton Fields provides this article in JDSupra, discussing the Sixth Circuit’s recent ruling in Blanton v. Domino’s Pizza Franchising LLC, No. 19-2388 (6th Cir. June 17, 2020), determining that an arbitrator should determine the arbitrability of class action claims against a franchisor when only the franchisees, not the franchisor, had signed arbitration agreements.

“Non-signatories Are Bound To Arbitration Agreement – You Know, the Ones That Did NOT Sign the Contract.” Jacob M. Davis has this article in the National Law Review, discussing a California federal court’s recent opinion in  Bentley v. Control Grp. Media Co., No. 19-CV-2437-DMS-RBB, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118076 (S.D. Cal. July 6, 2020).

The Second Circuit has reaffirmed its prior holding that a private international commercial arbitration is not “a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal” within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. Section 1782(a), which is the statute that authorizes federal courts to compel discovery. Thus, while acknowledging that other courts have taken a different view, the Second Circuit in its decision in In Re: Application and Petition of Hanwei Guo for an Order to take Discovery for Use in a Foreign Proceeding Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782 concludes that a party to a private international arbitration cannot compel discovery under federal statute.

Attention sailing fans. This article by Richard Gladwell in Sail-World informs us that “[a] Mediation, by the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel Chairman, has been successfully concluded between the teams representing Luna Rossa, the team of the Italian Challenger of Record and the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand.” The dispute reportedly involved cost sharing obligations.