Justia Arbitration & Mediation Opinion Summaries

The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, T.I.A.S. No. 6997, 21 U.S.T. 2517, requires signatory states to recognize written arbitration agreements “concerning a subject matter capable of settlement by arbitration.” In this appeal, the court addressed an issue of first impression for the Circuit: whether a cruise ship employee who is injured on the job, and whose employment contract contains an arbitration agreement governed by the New York Convention and Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 201, can bar arbitration by showing that high costs may prevent him from effectively vindicating his federal statutory rights in the arbitral forum. The court concluded that it need not definitely answer this question because, even if the court were to assume that plaintiff could raise a cost-based (public policy) defense in response to NCL's motion to compel arbitration, on this record he has plainly failed to establish that the costs of arbitration would preclude him from arbitrating his federal statutory claims. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court’s order compelling the parties to arbitrate. However, the court denied defendant's motion for sanctions. View "Suazo v. NCL (Bahamas), Ltd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a collective action against J&G under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., alleging that J&G failed to pay its truck drivers for overtime work. J&G waived its contractual right to compel arbitration by participating in the litigation, but when plaintiff amended his complaint to add state law claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit, J&G moved to compel arbitration as to those new claims. The district court denied the motion to compel arbitration. The court held that J&G’s waiver through litigation of the right to arbitrate plaintiff’s FLSA claim does not extend to the state law claims that were pleaded for the first time after J&G had litigated to the point of waiver the FLSA claim. Finding a Seventh Circuit case instructive, Dickinson v. Heinold Securities, Inc., the court concluded that J&G did not waive the right to arbitrate the state law claims raised in the second amended complaint because those claims were not in the case when it waived by litigation the right to arbitrate the FLSA claim. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Collado v. J. & G. Transport, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that CashCall and Western Sky’s business practices exploit tribal sovereign immunity and illicitly avoid federal and state regulations. The district court denied CashCall's motion to compel arbitration. The Supreme Court has explained that where an arbitration agreement contains a delegation provision - committing to the arbitrator the threshold determination of whether the agreement to arbitrate is enforceable - the courts only retain jurisdiction to review a challenge to that specific provision. Absent such a challenge, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq., requires that the court treat a delegation provision as valid and permit the parties to proceed to arbitration. The court held that when a plaintiff seeks to challenge an arbitration agreement containing a delegation provision, he or she must challenge the delegation provision directly. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court erred in neglecting to recognize the delegation provision in the agreement in this case. The court reversed and remanded. View "Parnell v. Cashcall, Inc." on Justia Law