Order Compelling Arbitration is Reviewable on Final Appeal

In the context of a slightly complicated procedural situation, the Texas Supreme Court made the following ruling earlier today: in a case where a court compels arbitration, the party resisting arbitration files a petition for mandamus challenging arbitration, the petition is denied, the party loses the arbitration, and the party resists confirmation of the award without success, in that case, the party is still able to challenge arbitrability in the final appeal of the judgment confirming the arbitral award. Assuming, of course, that the party did not waive its challenge to arbitrability (which it most certainly did not in this case). In other words, the fact that a court had already denied the petition for mandamus on the arbitrability issue did not deprive the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction over the subsequent appeal of the same issue.

The case, by the way, is but the latest installment of the John O’Quinn arbitration against a group of his former clients.

Chambers v. O’Quinn, ___ S.W.3d ___ (Tex. 2007) (Cause No. 06-1073).

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