The Tenth Circuit previously held that a revised state statute rendered the parties’ arbitration agreements enforceable, and, on remand, the Oklahoma district court compelled the parties to arbitrate their entire dispute. When Mid-Continent Casualty Company (“Mid-Continent”) moved to reopen the case for the purpose of filing an amended complaint adding a bad faith claim that Mid-Continent admitted it would not assert in the arbitrations, the court had to determine whether the arbitration agreements required Mid-Continent to arbitrate the bad faith claim. The court ultimately denied Mid-Continent’s motion, finding that the agreements used broad language and showed a clear intent to arbitrate all claims and that the tort claim, which was part of the same cause of action, fell within the broad arbitration clause. Mid-Continent Cas. Co. v. Gen. Reins. Corp., No. 06-0475 (N.D. Okla. Aug. 18, 2009).
This post written by Dan Crisp.