We have not been as diligent as we like to be recently with respect to this blog, due to, well, the practice of law. Anyhoo, as luck would have it, way back on May 24, when we ought to have been blogging but weren’t, the Third Court of Appeals issued a opinion denying a petition for writ of mandamus in an arbitration case. The issue is one that comes up a lot, and it’s an important one. We are just sorry we did not discuss it sooner.

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Karl and I have written about arbitral awards and their potential appealability, and we’ve blogged on the subject several times (most recently here). Here in the Fifth Circuit, it is permissible to write a provision for appeal into an arbitration clause, allowing for judicial review of an arbitral award on a basis other than the extremely limited basis provided by the Federal Arbitration Act or the Texas Arbitration Act. However, not all ju

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On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit released an opinion confirming an arbitral award (link is to .pdf file) in a dispute between two companies who had contracted to share in the duties of performing corrective laser eye surgery. The party that lost the arbitration sought vacatur on two grounds allowed in FAA jurisprudence: on the statutory ground that the arbitrator exceeded his authority, and on the non-statutory ground that the arbitrator manifestl

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The Eastern District of Texas blog is one of our favorites. Today, Michael Smith posted about a district judge’s decision to refuse to compel arbitration on the basis that the party seeking to arbitrate had waived that right by participation in the underlying litigation. We’ve discussed waiver as a defense to arbitration before. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law

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The Texas Supreme Court handed down six opinions today; none of them has anything to do with arbitration. Sadly, we’re too busy to discuss any of them at length. We would note, however, that one of the opinions discusses the economic loss rule, and how one goes about asserting it in Texas. Technorati Tags: litigation, Texas Supreme Court, law

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This morning, the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in an interesting case not normally within our area of interest, but which is worth mentioning nonetheless. The opinion, written by Justice Henson, describes the legal confusion which ensues when a couple begins to divorce and executes a mediated divorce settlement agreement but then does not consummate the divorce. In this case, the soon-to-be-ex-wife died the day before the hearing to e

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This past Friday, while Karl and I attended the Austin Bar Association’s annual Bench Bar conference, the Texas Supreme Court handed down another mandamus, per curiam opinion reversing trial court and court of appeals decisions not to compel arbitration. The case involved an employee of RLS Legal Solutions (“RLS”) named Amy Cobb Maida (“Maida”) who worked as a sales rep for RLS from 1997 until 2002. As per her employ

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Well, we have not posted much lately. There simply have not been any arbitration cases in the jurisdictions we routinely check (Texas, Fifth Circuit), and the actual law practice has been busy, so there has not been time to put something together in the “commentary” vein. However, that does not mean we have been ignoring arbitration issues. Later this morning, Karl will be presenting an update of his arbitration paper at the Austin Ba

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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

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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

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