F. Peter Phillips

by F. Peter Phillips This post continues Part I. As drafted, the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 (House Bill 1020) would amend Section 2(b) of the FAA to render invalid any pre-dispute arbitration agreement that purports to require arbitration of “an employment, consumer, or franchise dispute.” (“Franchise dispute?” How did that get in there? I would have thought that, subject to FTC regulation and state disclosure requirements, franchise is a p

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by F. Peter Phillips One hot, lonely summer day in 1958, at our rural home near Crozet, Virginia, I was working on an 8-year old’s project: dislodging a big quartz rock that was buried in the gravel driveway. After a few hours I realized the trowel just wouldn’t do the job. So I found a wood chisel in my Dad’s tool chest. “Ah-ha!” I thought, “This is just the thing! I’ll reduce it to bits and dislodge it a chunk at a time!” By the time Dad got ba

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