Texas’ Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas has invalidated an arbitration award for lack of jurisdiction.

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A petition for certiorari in an arbitration case that was decided earlier this year by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is currently being considered by the United States Supreme Court. In Bakoss v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyds of London, No. 12-1429, the appeals court held that the meaning of the term “arbitration” under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) was defined by federal common law.

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by Renée Kolar On July 20, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) filed its Motion to Dismiss Lance Armstrong’s Amended Complaint. (Read Motion to Dismiss here) In their motion, Defendants USADA and Travis Tygart, in his official capacity as the Chief Executive Officer of USADA, assert that the suit should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or, in the alternative, it should be dismissed or stayed under Section 3 of t

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The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that a district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear a petition to compel arbitration pursuant to Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). In Volvo Trucks N. America, Inc. v. Crescent Ford Truck Sales, Inc. No. 09-30782, (5th Cir. Jan. 5, 2012) Crescent Ford Truck Sales, Inc. (“Crescent”) operated a Volvo dealership pursuant to a Dealer Sale

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We thought that you might find interesting Professor Alan Scott Rau’s latest article, Understanding (and Misunderstanding) “Primary Jurisdiction, American Review of International Arbitration (forthcoming). Here is the abstract: In our “Westphalian” regime of international arbitration, conflict and competition between national jurisdictions, with overlapping and yet plausible claims to supervise the process, become inevitable. The conv

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By W. Reed Leverton In August, 2009 attendees of the annual Texas Judicial Conference were surveyed regarding their attitudes as to alternative dispute resolution processes, with a particular emphasis on mediation and arbitration. The survey was prepared by members of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section Council and undertaken under the Council’s direction. 1,547 state judges (trial and appellate) were invited to this year’s conference, 566

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Today, April 26, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an arbitration case. Chicago, has its own with overlapping issues. On February 15, 2010, I FILED 10cv1013 in the United States District Court for Northern, Illinois. See Falconer v. Gibsons Restaurant Group et. al. My opponent (Gibsons) has argued that the federal court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to decide if the arbitration clause is unconscionable (see its Pacer documents 12 & 1

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This morning, the Third Court of Appeals released an opinion reviewing a Travis County trial court decision to dismiss certain claims against an Oak Hill church for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, based on the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which in turn stems from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Third Court of Appeals, after presenting a fairly detailed discussion of the doctrine (and, in turn, of the historical relat

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The Third Court of Appeals issued three opinions this morning. The first, which came from a case against the City of San Angelo Fire Department, explains an affirmative defense to the Texas Tort Claims Act’s waiver of sovereign immunity for claims involving the use of a motor vehicle. While sovereign immunity is usually waived in Texas in cases where a governmental employee negligently operates a motor vehicle, there is no waiver in cases w

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