Reading Tea Leaves: U.S. Justices Speak on Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards
(photo: Reading the tea leaves by Joel Carranza)
In Judiciary's Role in Arbitration Weighed, AP reports on the tea leaves that lawyers and business people will be reading for the next several months as we await the Supreme Court's ruling on this issue -- may the parties to an arbitration agreement contract for judicial review of any resulting arbitration award.
While asking my arbitration expert posse Jay McCauley, Les Weinstein, Eric van Ginkel and Jack McCrory to please weigh in here, I'll provide you with my semi-tutored two cents.
Because the central policy issue supporting arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act is to allow contracting parties to control their own destiny, I'd wager the Supremes will permit them to do what they want to do here, i.e., allow federal courts to review any arbitration award the parties want them to.
Here are the tea leaves:
- Chief Justice John Roberts suggested expanded judicial review is appropriate, noting the two sides negotiated an agreement with court review as an option. But Roberts also questioned whether federal law allows the expanded review the agreement between Mattel and the property owner calls for.
- Justices Anthony Kennedy and John Paul Stevens pointed to court review as a tool that can be used in business disputes to encourage the use of arbitration.
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested the property owner is seeking more latitude than the law allows for judicial review of arbitration cases.
- Justice David Souter told the lawyer representing Hall Street Associates that "you want to get rid of" the section of the arbitration law that specifies limited circumstances under which courts can step in and overrule an arbitrator's decision.
The case is Hall Street v. Mattel, 06-989.
For a thorough analysis of the issues raised, see Hall Street: Contract vs. Statute at Ross' Arbitration blog.
By the way, I get alerted to articles like this on a daily basis here -- Laywers U.S.A. It's been my best and easiest source for breaking legal news for quite some time now and it appears in my in-box on a daily basis. For curmedugeons like Mr. Thrifty who say they don't have time to read ANYTHING online, it takes about 60 seconds to scan the news items. Then one second to delete if there's nothing there of interest to you. I highly recommend it and give a long belated "thanks" here to the people at Lawyers U.S.A.
