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International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) Interviews Professor Angela Downes, Richard D. Faulkner, and Philip J. Loree Jr. about the Heckman v. Live Nation Entertainment Ninth Circuit Mass Arbitration Decision

November 13th, 2024 Appellate Practice, Applicability of Federal Arbitration Act, Application to Compel Arbitration, Arbitrability, Arbitrability | Clear and Unmistakable Rule, Arbitration Agreement Invalid, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Law, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Arbitration Provider Rules, Arbitration Providers, Challenging Arbitration Agreements, Class Action Arbitration, Class Action Waivers, Class Arbitration Waivers, Clear and Unmistakable Rule, CPR Alternatives, CPR Video Interviews, Delegation Agreements, FAA Chapter 1, FAA Section 2, FAA Section 4, Federal Arbitration Act Enforcement Litigation Procedure, Federal Arbitration Act Section 2, Federal Arbitration Act Section 4, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR), Mass Arbitration, New Era ADR, Petition to Compel Arbitration, Philip J. Loree Jr., Practice and Procedure, Pre-Award Federal Arbitration Act Litigation, Professor Angela Downes, Professor Downes, Repeat Players, Richard D. Faulkner, Russ Bleemer, Section 2, Section 4, The Loree Law Firm, Unconscionability, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit No Comments »

CPR Interview

Heckman

Do you want to learn more about the Heckman mass arbitration case?

As readers may know, over the last four years or so, our friend and colleague Russ Bleemer, Editor of Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) (“CPR Alternatives”), has hosted presentations about significant arbitration-law developments (principally in the United States Supreme Court) that feature interviews of our friends and colleagues: Professor Angela Downes, University of North Texas-Dallas College of Law Professor of Practice and Assistant Director of Experiential Education; arbitrator, mediator, arbitration-law attorney, and former judge, Richard D. Faulkner; and yours truly, Loree Law Firm principal, Philip J. Loree Jr. (See, e.g., here, here, here, and here.) These interviews are posted on CPR’s YouTube channel, @CPRInstituteOnline.

On Monday, November 11, 2024, Russ interviewed Professor Downes, Rick and me about the Ninth Circuit’s recent mass-arbitration decision in Heckman v. Live Nation Entertainment, No. 23-55770, slip op. (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2024). The video is here.

Heckman

The Heckman case centered around unusual mass-arbitration rules promulgated and administered by New Era ADR, which among many other things, included a broad delegation provision, which delegated to the arbitrator the authority to decide the validity of the parties’ arbitration agreement. The parties’ online ticket purchase agreement terms (the “Terms”) provided for arbitration pursuant to the New ERA Rules, which in the Heckman case meant New Era’s Rules for Expedited/Mass Arbitration proceedings.

Plaintiffs commenced in 2022 a putative class action against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster LLC, alleging that the companies violated the Sherman Act by engaging in anticompetitive practices. Those defendants  moved to compel arbitration, but the district court denied the motion, holding that the delegation clause and the arbitration agreement were procedurally and substantively unconscionable under California law.

Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote a very interesting concurring opinion in Heckman in which he said he would have decided the case solely on the ground that the arbitration scheme violated the Discover Bank Rule, which was not preempted by the FAA because the scheme was not arbitration as envisioned by the FAA in 1925. This concurring opinion also discussed in some detail the conflict of interest that arises when arbitrators deciding arbitrability under a delegation clause conclude, or have reason to conclude, that an arbitration provider’s scheme—it’s business model—is unenforceable, pitting the arbitrator’s financial interest in continued employment against his or her neutral-decision-making interests.

Russ, Rick, Angela, and I discuss various aspects pertinent to the Heckman decision in the interview and identify issues that are likely to arise in future cases following the decision.
As always, we express our gratitude to Russ and CPR for hosting these interviews, and, along with Angela and Rick, look forward to contributing to future programs hosted by CPR.

Contacting the Author

If you have any questions about this article, arbitration, arbitration-law, arbitration-related litigation, then please contact Philip J. Loree Jr., at (516) 941-6094 or PJL1@LoreeLawFirm.com.

Philip J. Loree Jr. is principal of the Loree Law Firm, a New York attorney who focuses his practice on arbitration and associated litigation. A former BigLaw partner, he has nearly 35 years of experience representing a wide variety of corporate, other entity, and individual clients in matters arising under the Federal Arbitration Act, as well as in insurance or reinsurance-related and other commercial and business matters.

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

 Photo Acknowledgment

The photo featured in this post was licensed from Yay Images and is subject to copyright protection under applicable law.

International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) Interviews Professor Angela Downes, Richard D. Faulkner, and Philip J. Loree Jr. about the United States Supreme Court Certiorari Grant in FAA Section 1 Dispute: Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC  

November 21st, 2023 Applicability of Federal Arbitration Act, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration Law, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Exemption from FAA, FAA Chapter 1, FAA Section 1, Federal Arbitration Act Section 1, International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR), Loree and Faulkner Interviews, Professor Downes, Richard D. Faulkner, Russ Bleemer, Section 1, Textualism, The Arbitration Law Forum, The Loree Law Firm, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, United States Supreme Court 1 Comment »

BissonnetteOn September 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) granted certiorari in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC, No. 23-51 (U.S.), a case that concerns the scope of Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). Section 1 exempts from the FAA “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1.

A key question presented by the text of Section 1 is whether the contract is a “contract[] of employment” of a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”  SCOTUS has decided three cases that have addressed that issue—or aspects of it—in one context or another.

In 2001, in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105 (2001), the Court decided that Section 1’s exemption applied not to all employment contracts, but only to contracts involving “transportation workers.”

In 2019, in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 139 S. Ct. 532 (2019) (discussed here and here) the Court held that the term “contracts of employment” means “agreements to perform work,” irrespective of whether those agreements establish an employer-employee relationship or merely an “independent contractor” relationship.

Finally, on June 6, 2022, in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 142 S. Ct. 1783 (2022) (discussed here) the U.S. Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) held that certain ramp supervisors, who worked for Southwest Airlines, whose work frequently included assisting with the loading or unloading of baggage and other cargo on or off airplanes, were members of a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” for purposes of Section 1. (Southwest Airlines is discussed here.)

The question SCOTUS has taken up in Bissonnette is whether Section 1 includes an additional requirement—one not apparent from either the text of the FAA or any of the above three decisions – that the person performing the work be a member of the “transportation industry.”  The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that the answer was yes, and SCOTUS granted certiorari.

The reason that the question whether participation in the “transportation industry” is claimed to be relevant to the Section 1 FAA exemption is because the Bissonnette plaintiffs were commercial truck drivers who worked not for companies in the transportation industry but for ones in the baking industry—Flowers Food, Inc. and its two subsidiaries (the “Flowers Companies”). One or more of the Flowers Companies owns and sells “Wonder Bread.”

Each plaintiff had to form a corporation and enter in the name of that entity into a distribution agreement with one of the Flowers, Inc. subsidiaries. Those agreements provided the corporate entities with certain distribution rights in exchange for money. Each contained a mandatory, pre-dispute arbitration agreement.

The agreements required the plaintiffs to work forty hours per week minimum, driving vehicles to stores in their assigned territories within the State of Connecticut, transporting and delivering defendants’ baked goods (including Wonder Bread) and displaying them in the stores according to the defendants’ specifications.

The agreements subjected the plaintiffs to defendants’ policies and procedures, which regulated, among other things, the time, place, and manner of pickups, and required plaintiffs to report to the warehouse each day to upload data concerning their deliveries and pickups. Plaintiffs had to obtain and insure their own vehicles.

The district court held that the plaintiffs had to arbitrate their FLSA claims with the defendants, the Second Circuit affirmed for different reasons, and SCOTUS will decide the case this Term, which ends in June 2024.

We think it likely that SCOTUS will hold that Section 1’s FAA exemption for transportation workers is not conditioned on the workers being in the “transportation industry.” Provided a worker is within a class of transportation workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce, then it should qualify for the Section 1 exemption from the FAA.

Aside from the lack of an FAA textual hook for such an argument (and other reasons outside the scope of this post), just last Term SCOTUS in Saxon, construing the text of Section 1, provided a straightforward test to determine who is exempted from the FAA. The Saxon Court provided an easy test to determine who falls within the scope of FAA Section 1’s exemption. The Court held that “any class of workers directly involved in transporting goods across state or international borders falls within § 1’s exemption.”  Saxon, 142 S. Ct at 1789.  Accordingly, as long as a worker is within a class of transportation workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce, it will qualify for the Section 1 exemption.

The workers in Bissonnette are transportation workers because a large part of their work involves driving commercial trucks distributing Flowers’ goods to Flowers retailers in interstate commerce. Just as the Ramp Supervisors in Southwest Airlines were classified as “transportation workers” because they frequently loaded cargo on and off airplanes, so too, will SCOTUS probably rule that the plaintiffs in Bissonnette are “transportation workers” because they frequently drive trucks transporting goods in interstate commerce.

On October 24, 2023, our friend and colleague Russ Bleemer, Editor of Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) (“CPR Alternatives”), interviewed our friends and colleagues, University of Professor Angela Downes, University of North Texas-Dallas College of Law Professor of Practice and Assistant Director of Experiential Education; arbitrator, mediator, arbitration-law attorney, and former judge,  Richard D. Faulkner; and yours truly, Loree Law Firm principal, Philip J. Loree Jr., about the Bissonnette certiorari grant, its implications and how SCOTUS might decide the case. You can watch the video-conference interview HERE.

Johnathan Baccay, a CPR Intern, and a second-year law school student, on September 29, 2023 wrote for CPR Speaks (CPR’s blog) an excellent article about Bissonnette, which CPR Speaks published.

Contacting the Author

If you have any questions about this article, arbitration, arbitration-law, arbitration-related litigation, then please contact Phil Loree Jr., at (516) 941-6094 or PJL1@LoreeLawFirm.com.

Philip J. Loree Jr. is a partner and founding member of the Loree Law Firm. He has more than 30 years of experience handling matters arising under the Federal Arbitration Act and in representing a wide variety of clients in arbitration, litigation, and arbitration-related litigation.

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Photo Acknowledgment

The photo featured in this post was licensed from Yay Images and is subject to copyright protection under applicable law.

 

 

International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) Interviews Professor Angela Downes, Richard D. Faulkner, and Philip J. Loree Jr. about the United States Supreme Court Certiorari Grant in Coinbase II Delegation Agreement Dispute

November 14th, 2023 Arbitrability, Arbitrability - Nonsignatories, Arbitrability | Clear and Unmistakable Rule, Arbitrability | Existence of Arbitration Agreement, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration as a Matter of Consent, Arbitration Law, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Challenging Arbitration Agreements, Clear and Unmistakable Rule, Contract Interpretation, CPR Alternatives, CPR Speaks Blog of the CPR Institute, CPR Video Interviews, Delegation Agreements, Existence of Arbitration Agreement, FAA Chapter 1, FAA Section 2, Federal Arbitration Act Enforcement Litigation Procedure, Federal Arbitration Act Section 2, First Options Reverse Presumption of Arbitrability, First Principle - Consent not Coercion, Gateway Disputes, Gateway Questions, Presumption of Arbitrability, Questions of Arbitrability, Richard D. Faulkner, Russ Bleemer, Section 2, Separability, Small Business B-2-B Arbitration, The Loree Law Firm, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Comments Off on International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) Interviews Professor Angela Downes, Richard D. Faulkner, and Philip J. Loree Jr. about the United States Supreme Court Certiorari Grant in Coinbase II Delegation Agreement Dispute

CoinbaseOn November 3, 2023, the United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) granted certiorari in Coinbase, Inc. v. Suski, No. 23-3 (U.S.) (“Coinbase II”), a case that is related to Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 143 S. Ct. 1915 (2023) (“Coinbase I”), which was decided on June 23, 2023, and discussed here. Coinbase II involves an issue entirely different from Coinbase I: the application of a “delegation provision”—an agreement to arbitrate arbitrability disputes. That issue arises in a unique context: who decides whether a dispute concerning a later agreement is arbitrable when that later agreement, among other things, expressly submits all disputes concerning it to the exclusive jurisdiction of the California courts and not to arbitration? Is the delegation provision, as applied to this dispute over a subsequent contract, clear and unmistakable, as required by prior SCOTUS precedent?

On November 10, 2023, our friend and colleague Russ Bleemer, Editor of Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, Newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) (“CPR Alternatives”), interviewed our friends and colleagues, University of Professor Angela Downes, University of North Texas-Dallas College of Law Professor of Practice and Assistant Director of Experiential Education; arbitrator, mediator, arbitration-law attorney, and former judge,  Richard D. Faulkner; and yours truly, Loree Law Firm principal, Philip J. Loree Jr., about the recent certiorari grant, what it means, and how the Court might rule on it.

You can watch the video-conference interview HERE.

As we discuss in the interview Coinbase II promises to be an extremely interesting case, one which could (and perhaps should) result in a decision that the parties did not clearly and unmistakably agree to arbitrate an arbitrability dispute concerning a contract that: (a) was entered into some time after the contract containing the arbitration and delegation provisions; (b) expressly provides that any disputes concerning it must be decided in a judicial forum only; and (c) features as a party a person who is not a party to the arbitration and delegation provisions or any other aspect of the earlier contract.

Lee Williams, a CPR Intern, and a second-year law school student, wrote for CPR Speaks (CPR’s blog) an excellent article about Coinbase II, which CPR Speaks recently published, here. Among other things, the article explains the relationship between Coinbase II and other matters previously before SCOTUS, including the very similar Schein II matter. (For a discussion of Schein II, including a link to a CPR video, see here.)

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately dismissed certiorari in that Schein II matter as improvidently granted, and as we briefly touch on in the interview, a similar fate might also befall Coinbase II. Perhaps more on that in another post, but for now, enjoy!

Contacting the Author

If you have any questions about this article, arbitration, arbitration-law, arbitration-related litigation, then please contact Phil Loree Jr., at (516) 941-6094 or at PJL1@LoreeLawFirm.com.

Philip J. Loree Jr. is a partner and founding member of the Loree Law Firm. He has more than 30 years of experience handling matters arising under the Federal Arbitration Act and in representing a wide variety of clients in arbitration, litigation, and arbitration-related litigation.

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Photo Acknowledgment

The photo featured in this post was licensed from Yay Images and is subject to copyright protection under applicable law.