The Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in Chemaly v. Lampert, No. 24-10797, 2026 WL 1088514 (11th Cir. Apr. 22, 2026), reinforces the arbitrability of seamen’s claims falling under the New York Convention while clarifying the circumstances under which a non-signatory to a contract may rely on equitable estoppel to enforce the contract’s terms.
The plaintiff, Byron Chemaly, was a seaman who suffered a shoulder injury while working about the yacht M/Y Fountainhead. The owner of the yacht was a Cayman Islands company called Fountainhead Maritime Ltd., but Chemaly was employed by another Cayman Islands company, R. Operations, Ltd. Both Fountainhead Maritime and R. Operations were ultimately controlled by the same individual, Eddie Lampert (the former CEO of Sears and an Ayn Rand devotee).
Chemaly sued Fountainhead Maritime, R. Operations, Lampert, and two other unrelated entities (the yacht’s manager and its insurer) in Florida state court, bringing claims for Jones Act negligence, unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure, and failure to treat, as well as various tort and contract claims.
Chemaly’s employment agreement with R. Operations required “any dispute arising out of the Agreement” to be arbitrated in the Cayman Islands. The defendants removed the case under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention), 9 U.S.C. § 205, and admiralty jurisdiction. All defendants (other than the insurer) moved to compel arbitration of all claims.
The district court compelled arbitration of the Jones Act claim, the maintenance and cure claim, and the failure to treat claims as against R. Operations and non-signatories Fountainhead Maritime and Lampert. The court remanded the rest of the claims to state court.
The Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion authored by Judge Jordan, affirmed the order compelling arbitration of all three claims against R. Operations; affirmed the order compelling arbitration of two of the claims against Fountainhead Maritime and Lampert; and reversed the order compelling arbitration of one of the claims against Fountainhead Maritime and Lampert. The court declined to review the denial of the motion to compel and remand of the remaining claims for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
Arbitration of Seamen’s Claims
The court answered in the affirmative the question whether the arbitration provision in Chemaly’s employment agreement was enforceable in the first instance. In so doing, the court reaffirmed two of its prior precedents. Bautista v. Star Cruises held that seamen’s employment agreements are commercial relationships under the New York Convention and not subject to the Federal Arbitration Act’s seaman exception. 396 F.3d 1289, 1296 (11th Cir. 2005). In Lindo v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., the court rejected the plaintiff seaman’s argument that Jones Act claims are not arbitrable as a matter of public policy. 652 F.3d 1257, 1268 (11th Cir. 2011). Both decisions declined to apply certain defenses to arbitration contained in the New York Convention, including Article II(3)’s “null and void” defense, to preclude arbitration of the claims.
Chemaly argued that Bautista and Lindo were abrogated by the Supreme Court’s decision in GE Energy v. Outokumpu Stainless USA, which addressed whether the New York Convention conflicts with the application of domestic-law equitable doctrines. 590 U.S. 432, 445 (2020). Outokumpu held that it did not and that the New York “Convention requires courts to rely on domestic law to fill the gaps; it does not set out a comprehensive regime that displaces domestic law.” Id. at 441.
Although the Eleventh Circuit rejected Chemaly’s argument, it did note that Outokumpu’s instruction to use domestic law to fill the gaps in the New York Convention is somewhat in tension with statements in Bautista and Lindo that Article II(3) must be interpreted to encompass only those defenses recognized on an international scale. This tension, however, did not undermine the decisions to the point of abrogation. The holdings as to non-applicability of the FAA seaman’s exception and arbitrability of Jones Act claim did not turn on application of Article II(3). While Outokumpu clarified that domestic doctrines should be used to fill gaps, it did not “demolish” prior Eleventh Circuit precedent.
Enforcement by Non-Signatories
The court also considered whether the arbitration agreement could be enforced by non-signatories Fountainhead Maritime and Lambert. Outokumpu dictates that a court look to domestic equitable doctrines that allow non-signatories to a contract to enforce its provision in certain circumstances. The Eleventh Circuit assumed without deciding that federal common law applied to the employment agreement here.
Here, the non-signatory defendants relied primarily on the doctrine of equitable estoppel, which allows non-signatories to enforce a contract when (among other circumstances) “the signatory raises allegations of interdependent and concerted misconduct by both the [non-signatory] and one or more of the signatories to the contract.”
The court clarified that this second ground requires only two conditions: “(1) the plaintiff-signatory raises allegations of interdependent and concerted misconduct between the defendants (the signatory and the non-signatories)”; and “(2) [] that misconduct gave rise to claims falling within the scope of the contract.” The court rejected an additional requirement found in an unpublished decision that the misconduct be “founded in or intimately connected the obligations of the underlying agreement.” That standard was based on California law, not federal common law.
Applying the two-pronged test, the court reversed the district court’s order in part, concluding that the non-signatories could not compel arbitration of the Jones Act claim. That claim was not based on any “interdependent and concerted misconduct” by the non-signatories. Instead the complaint alleged liability in the alternative: if R. Operations was not his Jones Act employer, then Fountainhead Maritime was. And if neither entity was his Jones Act employer, then he was the borrowed servant of Lampert, making Lampert liable under the Jones Act. “That Mr. Chemaly pled the identity of the true Jones Act employer in the alternative does not mean that he alleged that all three acted in concert and interdependently.”
The court, however, affirmed the order compelling arbitration as to the maintenance-and-cure and failure-to-treat claims. As to those claims, the complaint alleged collective misconduct by all defendants post-injury. The duties allegedly breached (maintenance, cure, treatment) arise broadly from maritime law, and the conduct was intertwined and indistinguishable across defendants.
Judge Hull dissented in part. She would have allowed the non-signatories to compel arbitration of the Jones Act claim. That the complaint broadly alleged misconduct by “defendants” collectively and that the same factual core underlies all claims was sufficing to show interdependent misconduct, she would have held.
Appellate Jurisdiction Over Remanded Claims
The court dismissed the defendants’ cross appeal of the decision refusing to compel arbitration of the unseaworthiness claims. Previous Eleventh Circuit precedent dictates that the court does not have jurisdiction to review remand orders “where the enforceability of the [arbitration] clause serves as a predicate for our subject-matter jurisdiction.”
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Chemaly highlights an important consideration for practitioners drafting or responding to a complaint against non-signatory defendants. A plaintiff seeking to avoid enforcement of an arbitration agreement by non-signatories may do well to plead defendants in the alternative and avoid allegations of coordinated wrongdoing. Meanwhile, defendants seeking to enforce another party’s arbitration agreement may consider developing a factual record of coordinated conduct.