Our friend Richard Faulkner, a partner in the Richardson, Texas law firm of Blume Faulkner, P.L.L.C., I, and others were quoted in a Business Insurance article on the Rent-A-Center West v. Jackson case pending in the United States Supreme Court. The article is available here.
Richard’s quote was “The 9th Circuit’s decision flies in the face of virtually every well-reasoned decision on arbitrability and jurisdiction[.]” I could not agree with him more.
For those of you that do not know Richard, he has decades of experience in the arbitration, mediation and ADR fields and is a contributing author to Elkouri & Elkouri, How Arbitration Works (6th Ed.). His practice includes acting as a neutral arbitrator or mediator, serving on construction dispute boards, and representing clients in domestic and international arbitration-law-related matters. Recently he represented Dub Herring Ford Lincoln-Mercury, Inc. before the United States Supreme Court as an amicus curiae in Stolt-Nielsen, S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp., which was decided on April 27, 2010.
My more modest sound bite was: “There’s a lot of attention being paid to this case because it’s very frequent that you have challenges to arbitration agreements on unconscionability grounds made by employees and consumers.”
The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision in this controversial case by the end of this term in late June. We believe there is a good chance that at least five members of the Court will vote for a reversal, but that outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion. Whatever the result, you will certainly hear about it here at the Forum.
