The plaintiff made a claim under a disability policy issued to him in conjunction with his opening a deposit account with a bank. When the claim was denied, plaintiff brought suit against both the bank and the insurance company, alleging several causes of action, including breach of trust, fraud, misrepresentation, breach of contract and bad faith. Both the bank and insurer moved to compel arbitration based on the arbitration provision contained in the deposit account agreement. The district court denied the motions on the basis that arbitrability had been raised, and was an issue for the court to decide. The Fifth Circuit reversed, noting some limited circumstances in which arbitrability can be addressed by the court, but finding that the arbitration provision in question unambiguously provided that issues of arbitrability should be decided by the arbitrator and not the court, and that the language controlled. Allen v. Regions Bank, No. 09-60705 (5th Cir. August 11, 2010)
This post written by John Pitblado.