Arbitration Process Issues

A Texas federal court determined that, pursuant to the parties’ contract, the dispute was not arbitrable because the plain language of the arbitration clause expressly excluded suits that involved requests for injunctive relief, despite the incorporation of the AAA Rules. The clause stated as follows:

This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina. Any dispute arising under or related to this Agreement (except for actions seeking injunctive relief and disputes related to trademarks, trade secrets, or other intellectual property of Pelton & Crane), shall be resolved by binding arbitration in accordance with the arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association.

Defendants argued that, “under the plain language of the clause, disputes about arbitrability do not fall within the carve-out and thus, belong to the arbitrator.” Plaintiff, on the other hand, argued that “the structure of the specific carve-out at issue here leads to the natural reading that the AAA Rules only apply to the category of cases that are subject to binding arbitration under the Dealer Agreement – namely, those outside of the contract’s express carve-out.”

The District Court held that the arguments for arbitrability were “wholly without merit” based on the plain language of the arbitration clause itself and thus fell squarely within the “wholly groundless” exception created by Douglas v. Regions Bank, 757 F. 3d 460 (5th Cir. 2014). On appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, stating that, “[t]he mere fact that the arbitration clause allows [Plaintiff] to avoid arbitration by adding a claim for injunctive relief does not change the clause’s plain meaning.”

Archer and White Sales, Inc. v. Henry Schein, Inc., et al., No. 16-41674 (5th Cir. Dec. 21, 2017).

This post written by Nora A. Valenza-Frost.
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Utilizing a “sweeping reading of Concepcion,” as characterized by the concurring opinion, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that arguments that “a class action waiver, by itself, is unconscionable under state law or that an arbitration agreement is unconscionable solely because it contains a class action waiver” are expressly foreclosed by AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011). The plaintiff did not challenge the district court’s decision to compel arbitration, but rather the decision to compel arbitration on an individual basis, arguing that the relevant agreement’s class action waiver provision was unconscionable under Nevada law.

The majority stated that, while Concepcion foreclosed the plaintiff’s unconscionability argument because it was directed only at the class action waiver provision, Concepcion “does not foreclose application of state unconscionability doctrines to arbitration agreements generally.” Were the plaintiff to contend that “the entire arbitration agreement – or any aspect of it other than the class action waiver – is unconscionable,” then his argument would be viable. However, such was not the case here. Carter v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., Case No. 16-15835 (9th Cir. Dec. 12, 2017).

This post written by Benjamin E. Stearns.
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The case involved a dispute between the parties to a Reinsurance Participation Agreement (RPA). Defendants moved to compel arbitration, citing the Federal Arbitration Act and a provision in the RPA agreeing to resolve “[a]ll disputes arising with respect to any provision of this Agreement” in arbitration. However, the RPA also contained a choice of law provision providing that “[t]his Agreement shall be exclusively governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Nebraska.” Plaintiffs argued that the Nebraska Uniform Arbitration Act (NUAA), which prohibits enforcement of an arbitration clause in any “agreement concerning or relating to an insurance policy,” made the arbitration provision unenforceable.

In most cases, the FAA would preempt a state law regarding arbitration, but the McCarran-Ferguson Act allows state laws “regulating the business of insurance” to preempt any federal statute that is not specifically related to the business of insurance and impairs a state insurance law. Defendants argued that the FAA preempts the NUAA and that the RPA requires all questions concerning construction or enforceability of the arbitration clause, including the applicability of the NUAA, to be decided by the arbitrator.

The court rejected defendants’ arguments, finding first that the question of whether the FAA preempts the NUAA is not a question of arbitrability that an arbitrator can decide. The court then determined that the FAA does not regulate the business of insurance, that the relevant portion of the NUAA was “enacted for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance,” and that application of the FAA would operate to impair the NUAA. Thus, all of the conditions set by the McCarran Ferguson Act for a state law to preempt the FAA were met. As a result, the court found that the NUAA rendered the arbitration clause in the RPA unenforceable and denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel arbitration. Citizens of Humanity v. Applied Underwriters, Inc., Case No. B276601 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 22, 2017).

This post written by Jason Brost.

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The Ninth Circuit refused last month to disturb a district court order denying a defendant’s motion to compel arbitration against a sailor in a maritime action pursuant to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“Convention Act”) where the defendant company was not a signatory or a party to an employment agreement with an arbitration clause. The sailor (“Yang”) entered into an employment agreement with the vessel’s owner (“Majestic”) that contained an arbitration clause. While defendant Dongwon Industries Co. was responsible for the vessel’s repairs, maintenance, and supplies, it was neither a signatory nor party to Yang and Majestic’s agreement. After Yang died when the ship sank due to inadequate repairs, Yang’s wife sued Majestic and Dongwon for wrongful death. The district court compelled arbitration of her claims against Majestic based on the employment agreement, but denied Dongwon’s motion to compel arbitration.

First, the Ninth Circuit affirmed because the Convention Act does not allow non-signatories or non-parties to compel arbitration. Dongwon attempted to argue that the language in the Convention Treaty limiting arbitration to signatories applied only to a phrase addressing arbitration agreements, but not the phrase addressing arbitration clauses in other contracts. The court relied heavily on a Second Circuit case Kahn Lucas Lancaster, Inc. v. Lark International Ltd., which held that the signatory requirement language applied to both arbitration agreements and clauses in other contracts. Kahn Lucas relied on the last-antecedent rule, the grammar of the Treaty’s foreign texts, and the Treaty’s legislative history. In relying on Kahn Lucas, the court explicitly recognized the punctuation canon, under which a phrase applies to “all antecedents instead of only to the immediately preceding one” when the phrase is separated from the antecedents by a comma. The court also noted that every circuit considering Kahn Lucas’s logic has followed it. Lastly, the court found Dongwon failed to demonstrate that it was a party to the agreement containing the arbitration clause, a foundational requirement to compel under the Convention Treaty.

Second, the court rejected Dongwon’s argument that a non-party may invoke arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) if the relevant state contract law allows such a litigant to enforce the agreement. Initially the court noted FAA arbitration was unavailable to Dongwon because it specifically exempts “contracts of employment of seamen.” The court dismissed the argument as a “doctrinal sleight of hand” because arbitrations under the Convention Act require additional prerequisites than those required for arbitrations under the FAA, a conflict which prevents application of the FAA. Furthermore, even if the court were to ignore the additional Convention Act requirements, Dongwon would not be entitled to arbitration because its theories under the applicable state law—California—do not provide a basis to compel arbitration. To conclude, the court noted there was “no reason to depart from the general rule” that the contractual right to compel arbitration may not be asserted by a non-party to the agreement that does not otherwise possess the right to compel arbitration. Yang v. Majestic Blue Fisheries, LLC, Case No. 15-16881 (9th Cir. Nov. 30, 2017).

This post written by Thaddeus Ewald .

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