The Corpus Christi Court of Appeals has refused to order a dispute to arbitration where a clause in a general partnership agreement provided for mediation. In Appling Farms & Appling Interests, Ltd. v. Turner Mgmt., Inc., No. 13-09-00051-CV, (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi, January 27, 2011), Appling Farms, Appling Interests and Turner Management, entered into a limited partnership agreement to run a fish farm, Lonestar Aquafarms, Ltd., loc

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The Corpus Christi Court of Appeals has affirmed an arbitration award stemming from an irrevocable family settlement agreement. In In re Cantu, No. 13-08-00708-CV, (Tex. App. — Corpus Christi, November 18, 2010), several disputes arose between the seven children of an elderly widow regarding her care and custody and the disposition of her estate. Following a court-ordered mediation, all seven of the widow’s children entered into an irrevoca

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The Texas Supreme Court has held that an arbitration agreement signed as a condition of continued employment was not illusory and did not require a savings clause. In In re 24R, Inc., D/B/A The Boot Jack, No. 09-1025 (Tex. Oct. 22, 2010), Frances Cabrera was an at-will employee for 24R, Inc. d/b/a “The Boot Jack” for approximately 15 years. In 2003, 2004 and 2005 she signed an arbitration agreement as a condition of continued employment. In 2007,

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Yesterday, we posted about a Third Court of Appeals opinion where a party seeking to compel arbitration was found to have not established the existence of an agreement to arbitrate. Today, the Texas Supreme Court addresses the same issue but comes up with the opposite result. The case involved claims by investors against their stock broker based on Enron stock losses. In this case, the plaintiffs, who sought to avoid arbitration, signed contracts

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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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A couple weeks ago, we talked about the basic un-appealability of arbitral awards, and the idea that any potential alternative rule must be pursued at the front-end: parties can contract for some sort of appellate review of an arbitral award, but if it’s not in the arbitration clause there is nothing beyond what the FAA or the TAA (in Texas) allows, plus extremely limited non-statutory grounds for challenging confirmation of awards. Which i

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