This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued a mandamus opinion in an arbitration case holding that a fired worker’s defamation claim against her erstwhile employer was subject to an arbitration agreement, which required arbitration of personal injury claims. According to the Court, since the agreement was susceptible to two reasonable interpretations, one holding that defamation is a personal injury and one holding that it is not, arbitrat

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As you may or may not recall, we discussed the doctrine of McCarran-Ferguson Reverse Preemption some time ago and noted that it was working its way through the Texas Courts of Appeals. This past week (on January 11 actually), the Fifth Circuit weighed in, affirming a trial court denial of a motion to compel arbitration on McCarran Ferguson grounds. Under Mississippi law, an uninsured motorist automobile insurance policy cannot require arbitration

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On Friday, the Third Court of Appeals handed down an opinion on a petition for writ of mandamus holding that a Burnet County judge abused his discretion in failing to compel arbitration of a breach of contract claim brought by a partner and his wife against a partnership. The Court held that, under Federal Arbitration Act analysis, Texas law governs questions of whether a valid arbitration clause exists and whether the claims asserted fall within

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Yesterday, the Fifth Ciruit Court of Appeals handed down an opinion affirming a decision from the Northern District of Texas to vacate an arbitral award where the single arbitrator failed to disclose that he had worked with one of the attorneys in the case on a large piece of patent litigation in the 1990s. The arbitrator and the attorney in question were two of thirty-four lawyers representing Intel in the prior case over the course of several y

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