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Posts Tagged ‘Florida Arbitration Code’

Class-Arbitration-Consent: The Eleventh Circuit Creates Circuit Split by Ruling that Incorporation of AAA Rules is Clear and Unmistakable Consent to Arbitrate Class-Arbitration-Consent Questions

August 24th, 2018 Arbitrability, Arbitration Agreements, Arbitration as a Matter of Consent, Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Class Action Arbitration, Class Action Waivers, Consent to Class Arbitration, FAA Preemption of State Law, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States Supreme Court Comments Off on Class-Arbitration-Consent: The Eleventh Circuit Creates Circuit Split by Ruling that Incorporation of AAA Rules is Clear and Unmistakable Consent to Arbitrate Class-Arbitration-Consent Questions

Introduction

Class-Arbitration-Consent 1

Class-Arbitration-Consent 1

In prior posts we’ve discussed how footnote 2 of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, 133 S. Ct. 2064, 2072 n.2 (2013) said it was an open issue whether class-arbitration-consent presented a question of arbitrability, and how certain U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have, subsequent to Oxford, held that consent-to-class-arbitration presents a question of arbitrability, which is ordinarily for the court to decide. (See, e.g., here.)

We have also discussed how, under First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 942-46 (1995), even though questions of arbitrability are ordinarily for the court to decide, parties may clearly and unmistakably agree to submit questions of arbitrability to the arbitrators. In Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, 130 S. Ct. 2772, 2777 (2010), the Supreme Court of the United States referred to such agreements as “delegation provisions.” Id.

Class-Arbitration-Consent 2

Class-Arbitration-Consent 2

In Spirit Airlines, Inc. v. Maizes, ___ F.3d ___, slip op. (11th Cir. August 15, 2018), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit addressed a question that called in to play these two related concepts: “whether the [parties’] agreement’s choice of American Arbitration Association rules, standing alone, is clear and unmistakable evidence that [the parties] intended that the arbitrator decide” the consent-to-class-arbitration question. Slip op. at 2. The Court said the answer to that question was “yes.”

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Belz v. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney: Does a Petition to Vacate an FAA-Governed Award Timely Commenced in State Court Become Time-Barred Simply Because it is Removed to Federal Court?

April 6th, 2014 Arbitration Practice and Procedure, FAA Preemption of State Law, Grounds for Vacatur, Nuts & Bolts: Arbitration, Practice and Procedure, State Arbitration Law, Statute of Limitations, United States Supreme Court Comments Off on Belz v. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney: Does a Petition to Vacate an FAA-Governed Award Timely Commenced in State Court Become Time-Barred Simply Because it is Removed to Federal Court?

Part I

Belz v. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC, No. 3:13-cv-636-J-34 (MCR), slip op. (M.D. Fla. March 5, 2014), is one of those deceptively complex cases. The petitioner, successor trustee of a family trust (the “Trustee”), timely commenced under the Florida Arbitration Code (the “FAC”) in Florida state court  a petition to vacate an arbitration award by filing it within the 90-day period allowed by state law, but did not serve it until a few days after the three-month period required to vacate an award under Section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act (the “FAA”) had elapsed. Compare Fla. Stat. §§ 682.13(2) & 682.17 with 9 U.S.C. §§ 6, 10 & 12.[1]. The petition requested an order vacating the award under both the FAA and the FAC, which allows service to be effected after expiration of the 90-day filing deadline. See Fla. Stat. §§ 682.13 & 682.17.

The respondent, a well-known securities broker-dealer (the “Broker-Dealer”), removed the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida based on the court’s diversity jurisdiction. In federal court the Broker-Dealer argued that the petition was time-barred because service was not effected within the FAA Section 12’s three-month deadline. The district court agreed and dismissed the petition as time-barred.

The district court apparently thought that, once a court determines that an arbitration agreement falls within the scope of the FAA, all of its provisions—whether substantive, procedural or a combination of the two—supersede their state law counterparts if they conflict in any way with them, irrespective of whether the conflict frustrates the purposes and objectives of the FAA. The court also seems to have thought that the state of Florida could not, independently from the FAA, declare an arbitration agreement falling under the FAA to be valid, irrevocable and enforceable under Florida substantive arbitration law, and enforce that arbitration agreement through Florida’s own statutory, summary procedures that are, for the most part, identical to those provided by the FAA, and, in any event, do not frustrate the purposes and objectives of the FAA.

Belz is deceptively complex because at first glance the case seems relatively straightforward: (a) the FAA applied to the arbitration agreement and award; (b) the FAA’s three-month statute of limitations for vacating an award is not tolled until service is effected; (c) the court determined service was not timely under the FAA; (d) the FAC’s statute of limitations, which requires only that an application for vacatur be filed within the 90-day period, did not apply because the FAA applied; and (d) therefore, the application to vacate was untimely.

But in Belz there was an “elephant in the room,” albeit one well-camouflaged by its inherent complexity: federalism—a principle reflected in the text of the FAA, in the Continue Reading »