The Eleventh Circuit labored to disentangle a procedural morass in Burch v. P.J. Cheese, Inc., 2017 WL 2885095 (11th Cir. July 7, 2017), ultimately holding that the plaintiff, a former employee alleging violations of a raft of federal employment laws, failed to perfect his right to a jury trial on the existence of an…
Category: Arbitration
Kardashians Left Blushing, Can’t Compel Arbitration in Makeup Case
Kimberly, Kourtney, and Khloe Kardashian will find themselves back in court after the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of their motion to compel arbitration in Kroma Makeup EU, LLC v. Boldface Licensing + Branding, Inc., No. 15-15060 (11th Cir. Jan. 18, 2017). The Kardashians sought to enforce an arbitration clause against a party to the underlying contract…
Tribal Arbitration Agreement in Payday Loan Not Enforced
An arbitration provision in a payday loan agreement was held unenforceable because the provision’s exclusive designated arbitrator, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Nation, was unavailable and no substitute could be appointed. Parm v. Nat’l Bank of Cal., N.A., 2016 WL 4501661 (11th Cir. Aug. 29, 2016) (Dubina, J.). The lender, Western Sky Financial, conceded that…
Statutory Non-Waiver Provision Does Not Prevent Severance of Unlawful Terms and Arbitration Enforcement
Where an arbitration provision includes substantive limitations on the relief otherwise available to a party under a federal statute, there are three possible judicial responses: sever the offending provisions and enforce the agreement; enforce the agreement and leave any invalidity questions to the arbitrator, as in PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc. v. Book, 538 U.S. 401…
Failure of Proof of Online Consumer Arbitration Agreement
Does an arbitration agreement included in a credit cardholder agreement cover claims made under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act arising from collection of resulting credit card debt? In the Eleventh Circuit’s July 5, 2016 decision in Bazemore v. Jefferson Capital Systems, LLC, 2016 WL 3608961, the district court had held that the collection claim,…
Waiver of the Right to Arbitrate Federal Claim Does Not Extend to Later-Asserted State-Law Claims
On April 21, the Eleventh Circuit decided Collado v. J. & G. Transport, Inc., 820 F.3d 1256 (11th Cir. 2016), holding that a defendant’s waiver through litigation of the right to arbitrate claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) did not extend to state-law claims asserted by a later amendment to the complaint. Enrique Collado,…