The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that a bank could not enforce an arbitration clause inserted into an amended customer account agreement during the pending litigation incident to the sale and acquisition of the bank, because the plaintiff was actively opposing arbitration and the bank failed to notify the plaintiff’s counsel and the court of the purportedly “court-evicting” amendment. In so ruling, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the bank “failed to demonstrate the requisite meeting of the minds to support a finding that the parties agreed through the February 2013 amendment to arbitrate their then-pending…
Posts published in “Arbitration & ADR”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently affirmed a trial court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration against non-signatory third-party beneficiaries who did not accept the benefits of the contract. A copy of the opinion in Jacks v. CMH Homes is available at: Link to Opinion. In 2009, a buyer financed a mobile home purchase with a manufactured-home retail installment contract. The contract contained an arbitration provision that purportedly extended to “all co-signors and guarantors … and any occupants of the manufactured home.” Five years later, the buyer and her family sued the home’s manufacturer and…
The Supreme Court of the United States recently concluded that Kentucky’s “clear-statement” rule violates the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) by singling out arbitration agreements and treating them differently from other contracts. The Kentucky Supreme Court had held that the arbitration agreements at issue were invalid because the individuals who entered into the agreements did so under a power of attorney, and the powers of attorney at issue did not specifically entitle the representatives to enter into an arbitration agreement. The Kentucky Supreme Court reasoned that, because the Kentucky Constitution declares the rights of access to the courts and trial by jury…