Karl Bayer's Disputing Blog » Court Decisions about Arbitration

May 4, 2007

By Rob Hargrove - May 4, 2007

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

Duress and Arbitration

By Rob Hargrove - April 24, 2007

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

Perry Homes Oral Argument Tomorrow

By Rob Hargrove - March 19, 2007

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

Russians, Texans and Arbitration

By Rob Hargrove - March 16, 2007

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

Challenging an Arbitral Award in the CBA context

By Rob Hargrove - March 6, 2007

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

Supreme Court Decides Six Cases Today

By Rob Hargrove - March 2, 2007

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

Fifth Circuit Confirms Arbitral Award

By Rob Hargrove - February 28, 2007

Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion confirming an arbitral award in favor of Texaco (link is to .pdf file) in a contract dispute over some off-shore oil exploration in the Bohai Bay of China. The opinion confirms the award with discussion of two important points, one which has been discussed at length in the Circuit, and one which has not.The arbitrator in this case awarded Texaco more than $71M, some $20M of which was an award of

Texas Supreme Court Compels Another Arbitration

By Rob Hargrove - February 23, 2007

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued three opinions. The Texas Appellate Law Blog has already posted short summaries of them all (not that we have any interest in a race to do such things, but I would note that I was at the courthouse all morning and not able to check this morning’s orders as promptly as I like to). One of the opinions is another arbitration opinion, so we will discuss it in just a bit of detail. In a per curiam opi

More Texas Bloggers Discuss Arbitrability

By Rob Hargrove - February 14, 2007

Barry Barnett’s Blawgletter discussed a recent Second Circuit arbitrability opinion yesterday (Ross v. American Express). The opinion holds that Section 16 of the FAA, which allows interlocutory appeal of an order refusing to compel arbitration, applies in cases where the motion to compel arbitration was based not on a written agreement to arbitrate, but upon estoppel principles by which courts sometime compel non-signatories to arbitrate (

Texas Supreme Court Update

By Rob Hargrove - February 9, 2007

The Texas Supreme Court handed down five opinions this morning. None is about arbitration, so we’ll give them short shrift here. City of San Antonio v. TPLP Office Park Properties is a discussion of the City of San Antonio’s potential police power to close access to certain roadways in order to address residents’ complaints about commercial traffic in their neighborhood. Cause No. 04-1130. In Norris v. Thomas, a five-justice maj