Today, the Texas Supreme Court handed down an opinion on three certified questions from the Fifth Circuit which construes Section 5.077 of the Texas Property Code, which deals with accounting requirements the Code places on sellers of real property pursuant to executory contracts. Justice Medina wrote for the six-Justice majority, Justice Wainright wrote a concurring [...]
Today, a divided panel of the Third Court of Appeals issued an opinion in a case involving the deregulation of Texas’ retail electricity market. Justice Pemberton wrote for the majority, he and Justice Patterson; Justice Smith issued a dissenting opinion. Rather than try to summarize a detailed pair of opinions on a complex regulatory issue, [...]
The collision of the right to contract, arbitration, substantive civil law, separation of church and state, and civil rights embodied in Canada’s (now seemingly interminable) struggle with faith-based arbitration must have created the Rorshach test of all inkblots for liberals and conservatives alike. Heads and hearts must be about to explode everywhere in Ontario. Although [...]
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Guest blogger, Rick Freeman, wrote yesterday about a recent San Antonio Court of Appeals case upholding a finding that the AAA‘s estimate of costs and fees was so high as to make the requirement of arbitration unconscionable. Today the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri found an arbitration procedure developed by Amway [...]
Guest blogger Rick Freeman contributes commentary about a recent San Antonio Court of Appeals opinion about the enforceability of arbitration clauses. In my last article I discussed the need for fairness in arbitration agreements. Failure to have fair terms in the arbitration agreement or failure to provide a fair arbitration proceeding will result in a [...]
Continue reading about ARBITRATION LEGITIMACY — UNCONSCIONABILITY
The Texas Supreme Court did not hand down any opinions this morning, but it did grant three petitions for review. If time permits, we may offer a bit of discussion as to the cases the Court has decided to review. For now, however, I’ll just post links to the underlying opinions, so that curious readers [...]
They’re in the news again. The National Arbitration Forum has just issued a decision in favor of AARP’s right to its pharmacy web address . Its nice to see an organized, reasoned opinion with references to other opinions ( both within and outside NAF ) and court cases as precedent. And on another happy note, [...]
One of the big selling points for arbitration has been discovery is supposed to be cheaper and less formal. Many in practice would disagree, concluding instead that discovery has either become sloppy and incomplete or every bit as contentious, prolonged and expensive as the system its supposed to be an alternative to. In an effort [...]
Continue reading about What’s the right way to do discovery for securities arbitration?
This morning, the Third Court of Appeals issued a memorandum opinion clarifying the technical requirements Rule 683 imposes on a temporary injunction. According to the Court, a TI must include a specific trial date lest it be void, even, as in this case, when the trial court in the underlying lawsuit (Hays County District Court [...]
High Costs of Arbitration
Rick Freeman Commentary Following up on my article last week regarding the Olshan case – in which the San Antonio Court of Appeals found that the high cost of the required arbitration to be “shocking” and unconscionable and therefore the arbitration provision was unenforceable – I want to examine two appellate cases decided in 2004 [...]
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