Early this Saturday morning, Todd Smith at the outstanding Texas Appellate Law Blog posted about the strange quirk in the law whereby trial courts’ refusals to compel arbitration are immediately reviewable by mandamus if one statute applies (the Federal Arbitration Act or “FAA”) or by interlocutory appeal is another applies (the Texas Arbitration Act or “TAA”). Mr. Smith noted that the legislature could amend the int

Continue reading...

We recently blogged with Rick Freeman about the important distinctions between consumer (“take it or leave it”) arbitration agreements and agreements to arbitrate between sophisticated commercial parties. We’ve just skimmed HB 3091 (link is to .pdf file), which if passed would severely restrict or outlaw the widespread use of arbitration agreements in consumer contracts in Texas. We will, of course, keep our eye on this. However

Continue reading...

While we’re on the subject of arguments one can use to try to prevent the confirmation of an arbitral award, we note that the Texas Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the Perry Homes case tomorrow. For more on the case see this article, or this one, or this one from a more mainstream source (the Dallas Morning News). The argument will supposedly be webcast, but when I tried to find specifics on the internet the Court’s website s

Continue reading...

Earlier this week, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion holding that personal jurisdiction did not exist (link is to .pdf) as to several Russian companies that had been sued by a Texan company for allegedly breaching an agreement to produce natural gas from the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field. Since the contract was executed in Russia and performance would have taken place in Russia, the Court affirmed a trial court ruling that no personal jurisdic

Continue reading...

A couple weeks ago, we talked about the basic un-appealability of arbitral awards, and the idea that any potential alternative rule must be pursued at the front-end: parties can contract for some sort of appellate review of an arbitral award, but if it’s not in the arbitration clause there is nothing beyond what the FAA or the TAA (in Texas) allows, plus extremely limited non-statutory grounds for challenging confirmation of awards. Which i

Continue reading...

The Fifth Circuit just released an opinion reversing a district court’s vacatur (link is to .pdf file) of an arbitral award in the collective bargaining context. The opinion sets out the standard of review for arbitral awards when the arbitration is established by the collective bargaining process. Since this is an area in which we do not practice, I’m not offering any detail or analysis, but the opinion seemed worth noting. Resolutio

Continue reading...

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court handed down opinions in six cases; none had anything to do with arbitration. In an opinion on interlocutory appeal of an order certifying a class, Citizens Ins. Co. of America, et al. v. Daccach, et al., the Court decertified a class and remanded the case to the trial court. The case is a potential class action involving alleged violations of the Texas Securities Act. Moki Mac River Expeditions v. Drugg invol

Continue reading...

This morning, the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a procedurally complex case stemming from a group of hairstylists’ claim in quantum meruit that Supercuts failed to pay them for work done “off the clock.” The case was originally filed as a breach of contract class action in 1993; this morning’s opinion marks the fourth time the Third Court has written on it. The opinion spends a large amount of time reciting t

Continue reading...

Frequent guest commenter Rick Freeman made an important point yesterday in a comment to our post on the Apache v. Texaco case. Rick said, commenting not only on the Apache case but also on our post about Sen. West’s proposal that information about arbitrations be compiled: Instead of a statute that says the decisions will be compiled, why not one that says that, in true arms length negotiated arbitration agreements, taxpayer financed Texas

Continue reading...