Last Friday, the Texas Supreme Court issued two opinions, neither of which has anything to do with the law of arbitration. The first opinion discusses whether or not a city can be estopped from enforcing a zoning ordinance when its building official, unaware of the ordinance, mistakenly issued a permit which would have allowed construction in violation of the ordinance. In this case, and in all but “exceptional” cases according to the

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As avid readers of this blog will note, a few weeks back we commented on an opinion from the Texas Supreme Court compelling arbitration in a defamation case against Dillards by a former employee. We speculated (and continue to speculate) that the Court may have indicated that an arbitration agreement which allowed for unilateral modification could be considered illusory, based on the following language: The arbitration agreement and the 2000 rule

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By Rick Freeman In IN RE HERITAGE BUILDING SYSTEMS, INC, No. 09-05-445-CV, decided by the Beaumont Court of Appeals on February 9, 2006, we find another decision by the Texas appellate courts that lends further proof to my belief that Arbitration is God in Texas courts. In this case, Bohler bought materials to construct a prefabricated building from Heritage. On the back of the purchase order was an arbitration clause providing for arbitration by

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The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited (by us anyway) opinion in the Buckeye Check Cashing Case today. The majority opinion (link is to .pdf version), written by Justice Scalia for a 7-1 majority (Alito did not participate), reverses a decision by the Florida Supreme Court which held that a court, and not an arbitrator, must determine whether or not a contract between a check cashing company and consumers was an illegal violation of

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by Rick Freeman Two recent decisions by the Texas courts of appeals show how far the Courts have gone in enforcing arbitration agreements – no matter what the facts. In Southwind Group, Inc., v. Landwehr (No. 11-05-00247-CV, No. 11-05-00324-CV; 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 896), decided February 2, 2006, the Eastland Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s denial of arbitration and remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to compel arbitr

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In an opinion (link is to .pdf file) filed Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit affirmed a trial court decision to confirm an arbitral award which contained a punitive damages award for the arbitral plaintiff. The case involved a woman’s breach of fiduciary duty claims against the managers of an investment portfolio she received as part of a divorce settlement. The arbitral panel found that the investment company did in fact breach its duty to the

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The Texas Supreme Court ruled this morning that Texans did not acquire the right to privately invoke the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) until the Texas Legislature amended the Business & Commerce Code to allow Texas court to hear private suits based on the TCPA on September 1, 1999. The TCPA, which was passed in 1991, allowed individuals to sue companies that send unsolicited facsimile advertisements “if

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This morning, the Third Court of Appeals affirmed a Travis County trial court decision to grant a summary judgment in favor of the Comptroller’s office in a putative class action case which alleged that the Comptroller’s failure to pay interest on property returned to Texans under the Unclaimed Property Act constituted a taking. While the court’s analysis of the Unclaimed Property Act is perhaps not of general interest, the opin

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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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