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Posts Tagged ‘Breach of Contract’

The Businessperson’s Federal Arbitration Act FAQ Guide III: Pre-Award Litigation under Chapter 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act—Gateway Disputes about Whether Arbitration Should Proceed (Part II)

February 4th, 2020 Arbitrability, Arbitrability | Clear and Unmistakable Rule, Arbitrability | Existence of Arbitration Agreement, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration and Mediation FAQs, Arbitration as a Matter of Consent, Arbitration Law, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Businessperson's FAQ Guide to the Federal Arbitration Act, Enforcing Arbitration Agreements, FAA Chapter 1, FAA Preemption of State Law, Federal Arbitration Act Enforcement Litigation Procedure, Federal Arbitration Act Section 2, Federal Arbitration Act Section 3, Federal Arbitration Act Section 4, Federal Policy in Favor of Arbitration, First Principle - Consent not Coercion, Gateway Disputes, Gateway Questions, McCarran-Ferguson Act, Moses Cone Principle, Practice and Procedure, Pre-Award Federal Arbitration Act Litigation, Presumption of Arbitrability, Procedural Arbitrability, Questions of Arbitrability, Small Business B-2-B Arbitration, Stay of Litigation, Substantive Arbitrability 2 Comments »
gateway disputes

Gateway disputes, which concern whether parties are required to arbitrate a dispute on the merits, are the principal subject of pre-award Federal Arbitration Act litigation. In the last segment of this series, Gateway Disputes about Whether Arbitration Should Proceed (Part I), we answered a number of FAQs concerning gateway disputes, including who gets to decide those disputes:  

  1. What is the Difference between Pre-Award and Post-Award Litigation under the Federal Arbitration Act?
  2. What are Gateway Questions?
  3. Who Decides Gateway Questions?
  4. How do Parties Clearly and Unmistakably Agree to Submit Questions of Arbitrability to Arbitrators?
  5. Are there any Arbitrability Disputes that Courts Decide when the Contract at Issue Clearly and Unmistakably Provides for the Arbitrator to Decide Questions of Arbitrability?

Today we’ll answer some more FAQs about how gateway disputes are decided (or at least are supposed to be decided) by courts and arbitrators:

  1. What is the Presumption of Arbitrability?
  2. Does the Presumption of Arbitrability Apply to all Questions of Arbitrability?
  3. What Law Applies to Determine Gateway Disputes about Arbitrability to which the Presumption of Arbitrability does not Apply?
  4. How is Presumption of Arbitrability Applied to Resolve Gateway Questions about the Scope of an Arbitration Agreement?
  5. What Defenses, if any, Can Parties Assert against Enforcement of an Arbitration Agreement, and what Law Governs these Defenses?

The answers to these questions, along with the answers provided in Part I, will provide you with a solid foundation for understanding how pre-award Federal Arbitration Act litigation works and what to expect if your business is or becomes embroiled in it. The next segment will answer FAQs about the nuts and bolts of pre-award Federal Arbitration Act practice and procedure under Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the Act.

What is the Presumption of Arbitrability?

Back in 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark decision Moses H. Cone Memorial Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 24-25 (1983), famously declared that “[t]he [Federal] Arbitration Act establishes that, as a matter of federal law, any doubts concerning the scope of arbitrable issues should be resolved in favor of arbitration, whether the problem at hand is the construction of the contract language itself or an allegation of waiver, delay, or a like defense to arbitrability.” 

Continue Reading »

What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

November 5th, 2014 Claims Handling, Contract Interpretation, Insurance Contracts, Late Notice, New York Court of Appeals, New York State Courts, Nuts & Bolts, Nuts & Bolts: Reinsurance, Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Claims, Retrospectively-Rated Premium Contracts, Statute of Limitations Comments Off on What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

Part IV.C.1

Why Hahn Automotive v. American Zurich Ins. Co. is an Important Statute-of-Limitations Accrual Case

(Cont’d)

 

  Introduction

Part IV of our New York reinsurance statute-of-limitations feature started out by taking a closer look at Hahn Automotive Warehouse, Inc. v. American Zurich Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.3d 765 (2012). (See Part IV.A.) Part IV.B enumerated the seven reasons Hahn is a very significant development in New York statute-of-limitations law, and discussed the first two reasons,  namely that Hahn:

  1. Creates a new general rule, which effectively extends to a larger universe of contracts a statute of limitations accrual principle that the New York Court of Appeals had applied only to certain specific types of contracts, including contracts of indemnity; and
  2. Demonstrates that, outside the limited context of express conditions, breach-of-contract statute-of-limitations accrual is not exclusively a matter of party intent.

Part IV.B. also set the stage for discussing the third reason, that is, Hahn suggests the New York Court of Appeals—if faced with an accrual question where the obligor’s obligation to perform is conditioned on the obligee’s demand for payment—may deem the statute of limitations to accrue: (a) once the obligee is legally entitled to demand payment; or (b) the earlier of (i) the date the obligee demands payment or (ii) the expiration of a commercially reasonable period measured from the date the obligee became legally entitled to demand payment.

This Part IV.C.1 wraps up our discussion about Hahn’s likely influence on how courts applying New York law will decide cases where—unlike Hahn—a demand for payment is an express condition of the obligor’s duty to perform, but—like Hahn—the obligee has, for whatever reason, delayed making a demand. The focus of the wrap-up is on why we think that courts will probably permit accrual to be delayed for no more than a brief, commercially reasonable period, and may simply conclude that the Hahn legally-entitled-to-demand-payment rule should govern such cases because the performance of the condition is within the obligee’s control,  the benefits of the Hahn rule far exceed its costs and the costs of a “commercially reasonable time” rule exceed its benefits. Continue Reading »

What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

October 6th, 2014 Choice-of-Law Provisions, Claims Handling, Contract Interpretation, New York Court of Appeals, New York State Courts, Nuts & Bolts: Reinsurance, Reinsurance Arbitration, Reinsurance Claims, Retrospectively-Rated Premium Contracts, State Courts, Statute of Limitations Comments Off on What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

 Part IV.B

 Why is Hahn Automotive v. American Zurich Ins. Co. Important?

Introduction

Now that we’ve taken a closer look at Hahn Automotive Warehouse, Inc. v. American Zurich Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.3d 765 (2012), let’s step back a bit and consider what it means both in general and in the reinsurance-claim-statute-of-limitations scheme of things.

As will be explained in this Part VI.B, Part VI.C, and Part VI.D, Hahn:

  1. Creates a new general rule, which effectively extends to a larger universe of contracts a statute of limitations accrual principle that it had applied only to certain specific types of contracts, including contracts of indemnity;
  2. Demonstrates that, outside the limited context of express conditions, breach-of-contract statute-of-limitations accrual is not exclusively a matter of party intent;
  3. Suggests that the New York Court of Appeals, if faced with an accrual question where the obligee’s demand is an express condition to the obligor’s liability, would probably not permit accrual to be delayed for more than a relatively brief period measured from the date on which the obligee was legally entitled to demand payment;
  4. All but forecloses an argument that a court may justify a delay in the statute of limitations by deeming a demand requirement to be an implied condition;
  5. Creates an analytic framework for determining breach-of-contract statute-of-limitations accrual questions that is at least as well-suited to excess-of-loss reinsurance contracts as it is to retrospective premium contracts;
  6.  Will likely be applied to reinsurance contract statute-of-limitations questions, that cedents or reinsurers may in the past have assumed would be governed by Continental Cas. Co. v. Stronghold Ins. Co., 77 F.3d 16 (2d Cir. 1996); and
  7. If so applied to a situation where, as in Stronghold: (a) the reinsurance contract does not unambiguously condition the reinsurers’ liability on claims presentation; and (b) the cedent settled the underlying insurance claims more than six-years before commencing their action, will, all else equal, likely require a finding that the cedent’s claims are time-barred.

Hahn therefore has some important claims management implications for both cedents and reinsurers, which we’ll discuss in Part IV.E.

But there is, as no doubt many readers have discerned, a proverbial “elephant in the room:” arbitration. Arbitration agreements are exceedingly common in reinsurance contracts, particularly in treaties. In Part V., we’ll discuss the profound effect that the choice between judicial and arbitral resolution of a controversy can have on statute of limitations questions, and how that choice bears on cedent and reinsurer time-bar strategy.

Finally, there is another very important—and all too frequently overlooked— consideration that we would arguably be remiss not to discuss: choice-of-law. Reinsurance disputes, like so many of their other commercial counterparts, frequently cross state and national borders, raising horizontal choice-of-law issues. But in many (indeed, probably most U.S.) jurisdictions, including New York, choice-of-law rules that determine what substantive rules of decision apply (i.e., what rules of decision apply to merits-related issues) do not determine what statute-of-limitations rules apply, and that may be true (as it ordinarily is in New York) even where parties agree that the law of State X governs their agreement.

In New York, that issue is ordinarily determined by New York’s borrowing statute, New York Civ. Prac. L. § 202, many other states have similar (although not necessarily identical) borrowing statutes and at least a few other states may either simply follow the traditional rule that forum law governs statute of limitations or apply substantive choice-of-law rules to determine the applicable statute of limitations. Part VI will thus address choice-of-law questions pertinent to the statute of limitations, focusing on New York’s borrowing statute, and discuss how choice-of-law issues affect time-bar strategy. Continue Reading »

What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

September 19th, 2014 Claims Handling, Contract Interpretation, Insurance Contracts, Late Notice, New York Court of Appeals, New York State Courts, Nuts & Bolts: Reinsurance, Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Claims, Retrospectively-Rated Premium Contracts, Statute of Limitations, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Comments Off on What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

Part IV.A

Hahn Automotive v. American Zurich Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.3d 765 (2012): Unless Parties Unambiguously Condition Obligor’s Duty to Perform on Demand for Payment, Statute of Limitations Begins to Run as Soon as Obligee is Legally Entitled to Demand Payment

If you’ve been following this multi-part post from inception, then you know that we think the New York Court of Appeals’ 2012 decision in Hahn Automotive Warehouse, Inc. v. American Zurich Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.3d 765 (2012) strongly suggests that, if faced today with facts materially identical to those in Continental Cas. Co. v. Stronghold Ins. Co., 77 F.3d 16 (2d Cir. 1996), New York’s highest court would hold that the cedent’s claims were time-barred because: (a) the notice provisions in the reinsurance contracts did not unambiguously condition the reinsurers’ obligation to pay on presentation of claims and demands for payment; and (b) the cedent was legally entitled to present and demand payment for each of its reinsurance claims more than six years before the cedent commenced its action. This Part IV.A discusses what transpired in Hahn, and Part IV.B will analyze Hahn’s likely effect on excess-of-loss reinsurance-claim statute-of-limitations accrual.

Hahn Facts and Procedural History

Hahn was a dispute between an auto parts distributor (the “Insured”), and its two insurers, both members of the Zurich Insurance Group (the “Insurers”).

During each annual period between September 1992 and September 2003, the Insurers provided general liability, auto liability and workers’ compensation coverage to the Insured. The insurance was priced using three types of alternative-risk-finance rating plans embodied in: (a) retrospective premium agreements (the “Retro Premium Agreements”); (b) adjustable deductible policies (the “Adjustable Deductible Policies”); and (c) deductible policies (the “Deductible Policies”). The Insurers also entered into certain claims services contracts (the “Claims Services Contracts”) under which the Insurers provided claims-handling services on a fixed-fee-per-claimant basis. Continue Reading »

Re Colorado Energy Management, LLC v. Lea Power Partners, LLC: Another Appellate Division holds Construction Arbitration Award should be Vacated, but this time for Good Reason

May 10th, 2014 American Arbitration Association, Appellate Practice, Arbitrability, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Arbitrator Vacancy, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Construction Industry Arbitration, Functus Officio, Grounds for Vacatur, Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, New York State Courts, Practice and Procedure, State Arbitration Law, State Arbitration Statutes, State Courts Comments Off on Re Colorado Energy Management, LLC v. Lea Power Partners, LLC: Another Appellate Division holds Construction Arbitration Award should be Vacated, but this time for Good Reason

Introduction

In our recent post on the Merion Construction case (here), we were pretty critical of New Jersey’s Superior Court, Appellate Division, for reversing a trial court decision confirming a modified arbitration award, finding it should have been vacated and the original award confirmed. Today’s post takes a brief look at a decision by another state’s Appellate Division—New York’s Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department—which held that another construction-industry award should be vacated.

In Merion Construction the New Jersey Appellate Division thought the arbitrator had no authority to correct his award to reflect the rulings he intended to make on two issues the parties had submitted to him. Re Colorado Management, LLC v. Lea Power Partners, LLC , ___ A.D.3d ___, ___, 2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 01253 at 1-3 (1st Dep’t Feb. 20, 2014), held that a final arbitration award had to be vacated because the arbitrator had no authority to rule upon an issue that was not presented to him in light of the parties’ submissions and a ruling made in the same proceeding by a predecessor arbitrator.

While Merion Construction got an “F,” Colorado Management gets at least an “A-,” and perhaps even an “A.” Continue Reading »

What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

March 4th, 2014 Claims Handling, Contract Interpretation, Internal Controls, New York Court of Appeals, New York State Courts, Nuts & Bolts, Nuts & Bolts: Reinsurance, Practice and Procedure, Reinsurance Arbitration, Reinsurance Claims, Statute of Limitations, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Comments Off on What is the Statute of Limitations for a Reinsurance Claim under New York Law and When does it Begin to Run?

Part II

In Part I (here) we determined the probable success of Reinsurer R’s motion to dismiss turns on whether the reinsurance contract expressly makes Cedent C’s presentation of claims a condition precedent to R’s obligation to pay them.  This Part II discusses in some detail New York law pertinent to contract statute-of-limitations accrual as it existed both before and after the Second Circuit’s 1996 decision in Continental Cas. Co. v. Stronghold Ins. Co., 77 F.3d 16 (2nd Cir. 1996), and before the New York Court of Appeals decided Hahn Automotive Warehouse, Inc. v. American Zurich Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.3d 765, 771 (2012).

Parts III and IV will discuss Stronghold and Hahn in some detail, and explain why we believe Stronghold misapplied New York law by concluding that the reinsurance contract before it expressly conditioned the reinsurers’ obligation to pay on the cedent presenting claims for payment. This Part II provides readers with the background required to understand better why we think that is so. Continue Reading »