Karl Bayer's Disputing Blog » Court Decisions about Arbitration

Fifth Circuit Sends Marine to Arbitration

By Rob Hargrove - May 15, 2006

Late last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down another opinion holding that a federal statutory cause of action was subject to binding arbitration (link is to .pdf file). This time, the Court ruled that in enacting the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”), Congress did not intend to preclude employers from requiring military employees to arbitrate their statutory rights. The case itself is

Texas Supreme Court Issues Workplace Safety Opinion

By Rob Hargrove - May 12, 2006

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court reversed trial court and Tenth Court of Appeals findings that Kroger was liable for injuries one of its employees sustained while helping a customer load grocery bags into her car. The employee in question had placed one hand on the customer’s car door jamb while steadying the cart with his foot when the customer slammed her car door on his hand (the parking lot was on a slope, hence the foot-steadying)

Fifth Circuit to Rehear Positive Software Case

By Rob Hargrove - May 12, 2006

On January 12, 2006, we blogged about the Fifth Circuit decision in the Positive Software case to vacate an arbitral award on the basis of an undisclosed conflict of interest. Today, the Circuit decided to rehear the case(link is to .pdf file) en banc. We will keep you posted on this and other exciting developments as they unfold. As yet, neither the new briefing schedule nor the oral argument had been set. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, Fift

Big Morning at the Texas Supreme Court

By Rob Hargrove - May 5, 2006

The Texas Supreme Court issued seven opinions this morning. We’re still sorting through them, and we will comment in some detail on the ones that are applicable to this blog, but I wanted to at least note them quickly in case any is of immediate interest to any of our readers. I would also note that, after a cursory review, none seems to have anything to do with the law as it pertains to arbitration, although a few certainly do merit furthe

Inverse Condemnation and Impairment of Access

By Rob Hargrove - April 28, 2006

The Texas Supreme Court issued one opinion this morning, explaining Texas law as it applies to inverse condemnation claims based on a state action that allegedly impairs a property owner’s access to his or her property. In this case, the Supreme Court held that since the property owner was entitled to an easement from the state to allow access to a public roadway, no impairment of access had occurred which would have given rise to a condemn

Fifth Circuit Uses Alter Ego Theory to Confirm Arbitral Award

By Rob Hargrove - April 26, 2006

In 1993, an Argentine company, Bridas, entered in to a joint venture with the government of Turkmenistan, which was recently liberated from the Soviet Union. The venture went south when the government of Turkmenistan demanded a higher royalty percentage than provided by the Joint Venture Agreement. When Bridas refused to capitulate, Turkmenistan simply banned Bridas from the country. A joint venture with a government of an unstable and new countr

Judicial Disqualification

By Rob Hargrove - March 17, 2006

This morning, in addition to the arbitration case we’ve already discussed, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion in a judicial disqualification case, to which Justice Hecht dissented. As the court succinctly summarizes its holding: the question presented here is whether an appellate judge is disqualified because, unbeknownst to her, before she took the bench another attorney at her very large firm played a very small role in the early s

Tortious Interference Claims Must be Arbitrated in Texas

By Rob Hargrove - March 17, 2006

This morning, the Texas Supreme Court issued another mandamus opinion compelling arbitration in the face of a trial court and court of appeals refusal to do so. This time the case involves a claim for tortious interference of contract. James Cashion was an insurance salesman; he signed an agency contract with a health insurance carrier that contained an arbitration clause. The carrier cut Cashion’s commissions and eventually terminated his

Friday, March 3, 2006

By Rob Hargrove - March 8, 2006

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

Texas Supreme Court sends more ex-Dillards Employees to Arbitration

By Rob Hargrove - March 8, 2006

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