Arbitration

Washington State Supreme Court Refuses to Enforce Arbitration Clause

February 20, 2013 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Since the United States Supreme Court’s ruling on AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, many consumers across the nation have found it difficult to enforce their right to litigation. The Supreme Court maintained that, since arbitration is a superior means of solving disputes, the arbitration clauses many companies are adding to their consumer contracts are enforceable.
Many consumers disagree. The arbitration clauses which more and more companies are adding to their consumer contracts require consumers to give up their right to litigation. Instead, any dispute must be handled in arbitration. This is unfair to consumers as it prevents class actions, thereby severely decreasing the damages that can be awarded and making it less likely that many consumers who suffered only a small financial loss will pursue their grievance at all. Arbitrations are also handled by a company hired by the defendant, often making it more difficult for prosecuting consumers to get a fair hearing. We stongly advise consumers not sign arbitration agreements when making large purchases for items such as for cars or RVs. In those types of cases consumers have the leverage to say no to arbitration.

Many judges have found their hands tied by this Supreme Court decision and forced consumers into arbitration with the companies with which they signed a contract. The Washington State Supreme Court, on the other hand, has recently ruled in favor of the consumer in Gandee v. LDL Freedom Enterprises Inc. In the first such case to reach the Washington Supreme Court since the Concepcion decision, the Court affirmed the Pierce County Superior Court’s ruling which denied the Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.

In this case, the defendant, a debt adjusters company, had provided a contract with an arbitration clause which went further than merely requiring arbitration. It also required said arbitration to be handled in Orange County, California, rather than the consumers’ home state of Washington; drastically shortened the consumers’ statute of limitations from the normal 4 years to a mere 30 days; and threatened that, if the consumers sued and lost, they would be responsible for all of the Defendant’s attorneys fees and legal costs.

The Gandees challenged the arbitration clause, saying that it is unconscionable and unenforceable under Washington contract law. The trial court agreed and the Defendants appealed the decision, putting the case before the Washington Supreme Court, which agreed with the trial court.

The Court held that the terms of the arbitration clause were grossly one-sided and existed to discourage potential claimants from accessing their rights due to the heavy cost burden imposed by the clause. While this may seem to fly in the face of the United States Supreme Court Concepcion decision, the Washington Supreme Court does not seem to think so. The opinion reads, “Concepcion provides no basis for preempting our relevant case law nor does it require the enforcement of Freedom’s arbitration clause.”

Appellate Court Rules that Adding an Arbitration Clause to an Insurance Agreement Does Not Constitute a Change in Coverage under Illinois Law

November 10, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Workers’ compensation insurance is a necessary part of doing business for many companies, so the attorneys at Lubin Austermuehle are always on the lookout for emerging legal issues in that area. Our Naperville business attorneys recently discovered a decision rendered by the Appellate Court of Illinois that is significant for current and potential clients who have workers’ compensation insurance agreements that contain an arbitration clause.

All-American Roofing, Inc. v. Zurich American Insurance Company pits Plaintiff All-American Roofing against its Defendant insurer, Zurich American in a lawsuit that arose from alleged unpaid deductibles and retrospective insurance premiums. The five-year insurance agreement was based upon retrospectively rated premiums that required Plaintiff to reimburse Defendant after the end of a policy year for claims that arose during that year. After the fourth year, the policy exchanged the retrospectively rated premiums for a larger deductible. The dispute began when Defendant summoned Plaintiff to arbitration regarding the aforementioned unpaid sums pursuant to a mandatory arbitration clause contained within the parties’ agreement. In response to the arbitration summons, All-American Roofing filed for declaratory judgment along with claims for breach of contract, fraud, and related causes of action. Plaintiff requested that the trial court declare that the mandatory arbitration clause was unenforceable and sought damages for their other claims. The trial court stayed the arbitration, dismissed most of Plaintiffs claims through summary judgment and ordered the parties to arbitrate the remaining issues. Plaintiff then appealed the trial court’s rulings regarding the arbitration clause, contract, and fraud claims.

On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the arbitration clause was added to their policy after the first year of coverage and that the clause constituted a material alteration to the policy’s coverage. Furthermore, Plaintiff argued that the Illinois Insurance Code required Defendant to give notice that it was not renewing the original coverage. Because Defendant failed to give such notice, the arbitration clause did not legally take effect. The Appellate Court disagreed, stating that the addition of an arbitration clause did not constitute a change in coverage, and cited the plain language of the statute for their reasoning. The Court went on to hold that the agreements and subsequent addenda to it for the first two years were valid because the parties lawfully entered into the agreements and there was sufficient consideration on both sides. The Court also upheld the trial courts granting of Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on Plaintiff’s fraud claim because there was not sufficient evidence in the record of fraud nor had Plaintiffs identified any material issue regarding Defendant’s alleged violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The Court held that the arbitration clause was not operative for the final two year of the agreement because Plaintiffs never signed the amended policy documents for those years. The Appellate Court reversed the trial court on this issue because they disagreed with the trial court’s ruling that Plaintiff’s payment and acceptance of coverage signified acceptance of the new terms.

All-American Roofing, Inc. v. Zurich American Insurance Company provides a valuable lesson to business owners who utilize arbitration clauses in their contracts. Namely, this case tells us to read the fine print in any contract before signing it, as you may be getting more (or less, depending on your point of view) than you originally bargained for.

Northern District of Illinois Rules that Arbitration Clause in Employee Handbook is Enforceable

May 2, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

More and more businesses are utilizing employment agreements with new hires, and often those agreements contain arbitration dispute resolution clauses. As experienced wage and hour class action attorneys, Lubin Austermuehle is familiar with such agreements and our attorneys are always mindful of court rulings that affect this area of the law. The Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division federal court rendered a decision affecting employment arbitration agreements recently, and we wanted to make our readers and clients aware of the court’s ruling.

Brown v. Luxottica Retail North America Inc. pits a class of salaried retail, lab, and general managers against their employer Lenscrafters. Plaintiffs argued that they were non-exempt employees, and therefore were entitled to overtime compensation. The employees filed suit alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL), and Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA) for unpaid overtime wages. In response, Defendant moved to compel one of the named plaintiffs to arbitrate her claims and stay the proceedings with respect to that plaintiff. Defendant so moved pursuant to a dispute resolution agreement contained within the employee handbook Plaintiff was given while still employed by Defendant. Defendant required Plaintiff to accept the terms of the handbook in order to continue her employment. The agreement contained a form to allow the employee to opt-out of the arbitration clause and instructions how to fill it out, but Plaintiff had failed to sign the form. Plaintiff objected to Defendant’s motion on the grounds that it was unconscionable and unenforceable.

In considering Plaintiff’s arguments, the Court evaluated the procedural and substantial unconscionability of the agreement. The Court found no procedural unconscionability because the arbitration language was “clearly set off” from the rest of the employee handbook and was easy to find by those who actually read the entire handbook. Next, the Northern District held that there was no substantive unconscionability due to the existence of the opt-out clause and the fact that the Plaintiff chose not to exercise her right to opt-out even though she signed a document stating she had read and accepted the terms of the handbook. Finally, the Court ruled that nothing in the FLSA precludes an agreement to arbitrate an FLSA claim, and granted Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.

Five-Year Statute of Limitations Applies to Enforcement of Arbitration Award, First District Finds

February 23, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

As Illinois arbitration lawyers, we were interested to see a ruling on the statute of limitations for enforcing an award won in private arbitration. Peregrine Financial Group Inc. v. Futronix Trading, Ltd. No. 1-09-2293 (Ill. 1st May 21, 210) pits Peregrine, a commodities brokerage firm, against Futronix, a client that became delinquent in its accounts with Peregrine. The plaintiff took the defendant to arbitration and won an award of the delinquent amount plus interest. However, that was in August of 2003, and the plaintiff waited until November of 2008 to file in court to enforce the award. The defendant successfully moved to dismiss on the grounds that the statute of limitations had passed, under Illinois Code of Civil Procedure sec. 13-205. The plaintiff moved to reconsider but was denied, and appealed both decisions to the First District Court of Appeal.

Defendants hired plaintiffs to act as their agent in commodities futures purchasing. However, the defendants did not maintain enough money in its account to cover its losses, causing it to go delinquent in the amount of $115,512.64. The plaintiff filed an arbitration action with the National Futures Association and won that amount plus costs. The defendants then moved and did not pay the award. Five years and three months later, the plaintiffs filed in Cook County court to confirm the award. Defendants moved to dismiss on several grounds, including the statute of limitations. The plaintiff argued that there is no statute of limitation on an arbitration award, but the trial court was unmoved. Plaintiff appealed.

On appeal, the First noted that sec. 13-205 of the Code of Civil Procedure explicitly includes “awards of arbitration” among the types of actions to which it applies. Nonetheless, the plaintiff cited a federal case, United Steelworkers of America v. Danly Machine Corp., 658 F. Supp. 736 (N.D. Ill. 1987), in support of its argument. In that case, the district court for northern Illinois specifically said Illinois law does not impose a statute of limitations on arbitration awards. However, the First said, the district court gave no support or reasoning for its statement, and federal law is not binding on state courts.

The First also rejected an argument that if a statute of limitations applies, it should be sec. 13-206 of the Code, which gives a 10-year statute of limitations for actions arising from “written evidence of indebtedness” such as written contracts and promissory notes. In support, the plaintiff cited Blacke v. Industrial Comm’n, 268 Ill. App. 3d 26, 644 N.E.2d 23 (1994), a case about whether sec. 13-205 applied to collection actions under the Workers’ Compensation Act. That court decided that 13-205 applies to all statutory rights of action unless the legislature specifically intended otherwise, and rejected the argument that sec. 13-206 applied to the Workers’ Compensation Act or any other statute. The plaintiff argued the inverse: that the 10-year statute of limitations applies because its cause of action was based on a contract. However, the First said, that’s not quite true — the arbitration was based on a contract, but the suit seeking to enforce the arbitration award was not.

Finally, the court rejected three more arguments. One was based on public policy — that applying the five-year statute of limitations would run counter to Illinois public policy of enforcing arbitration awards. While it’s true that Illinois has such a public policy, the court said, it also has a public policy to enforce statutes of limitations. The plaintiff then argued that the statute of limitations should have been tolled when the defendants moved without paying. But this did not prevent the plaintiff from filing, the court noted, although it would have required the plaintiff to serve notice of the claim by publication. The last argument plaintiff made was that fundamental fairness should require the court to allow the case to go forward. The First rejected this, saying the plaintiff hadn’t shown any good reason for its five-year delay in filing. Thus, it upheld both the original judgment of the trial court and its denial of plaintiff’s motion to reconsider.

A New Article On Mandatory Arbitration: The Struggle to Shape American Arbitration

February 13, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

As Chicago business attorneys and Chicago consumer lawyers we were very interested to read the new law review article on the projected impact that mandatory consumer arbritration agreements could have in harming business arbitrations. Agreed upon arbitration of business disputes is a great way to resolve suhc disputes in a cost effective manner. On the other hand take or leave it clauses requiring consumers to arbitrate small disputes and banning class actions usually has the effect of barring acess to justice and redress for mass consumer frauds or unfair practices.

Click here to read the entire article: Revelation and Reaction: The Struggle to Shape American Arbitration in CONTEMPORARY ISSUES INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION: THE FORDHAM PAPERS 2010, Martin Nijhoff, 2011.

Below is an abstract of the article:

Fourth District Rules Standing to Sue Is Not an Arbitrable Issue, but Denies Stay of Arbitration

December 22, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

In a case that presented questions very interesting to our Chicago arbitration and mediation attorneys, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled that standing to arbitrate is not an issue that should itself be submitted to arbitration. In Equistar Chemicals, LP v. Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company of Connecticut, No. 4-07-0478 (Ill. 4th 2008), Hartford, an insurance company, sought to hold Equistar responsible for damage to a turbine generator owned by Hartford’s insured, Trigen-Cinergy Solutions of Tuscola. Trigen had signed a contract with Equistar that included an arbitration clause, and Hartford filed a demand for arbitration of its claim as a subrogee of Trigen. In court, Equistar moved to stay arbitration until Hartford’s standing to invoke arbitration could be determined. That court denied the stay, saying standing should be determined by arbitrators.

Equistar has an ethanol plant in Tuscola, Ill. It hired Trigen to provide energy, water and wastewater treatment at the plant, and their contract included an arbitration agreement. Later, an Equistar employee allegedly acted negligently with a circuit breaker, causing an electrical arc that damaged a turbine generator belonging to Trigen. Hartford, as the insurer to Trigen, paid $853,442 to repair the damage, then filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association. It requested the $853,442 in damages from Equistar, by virtue of its subrogee relationship with Trigen. Equistar responded by objecting in Illinois trial court to Hartford’s standing, the jurisdiction of arbitrators and the arbitrability of the claim. It later filed a motion to stay arbitration until, among other things, standing could be determined. The trial court denied that motion, concluding that Hartford had standing as a subrogee, but that standing can be determined in arbitration.

Equistar filed this interlocutory appeal, arguing that the Illinois Uniform Arbitration Act requires the court, not private arbitrators, to decide questions of standing. It quoted at length from the Act: “…if the opposing party denies the existence of the agreement to arbitrate, the court shall proceed summarily to the determination of the issue so raised[.] … On application, the court may stay an arbitration proceeding commenced or threatened on a showing that there is no agreement to arbitrate. That issue, when in substantial and bona fide dispute, shall be forthwith and summarily tried and the stay ordered if found for the moving party.” Under this language, the Fourth said it’s clear that the Act requires courts to make the initial determination of whether parties have agreed to arbitrate. In this case, it added, there was no reason to delay things by sending the question to arbitration, since arbitrators would have no special skill in determining whether Hartford had standing to invoke arbitration.

In determining otherwise, the trial court had relied on language in the parties’ arbitration agreement saying “the decision of the arbitrators (including the decision that the dispute is arbitrable) shall be final and binding upon the parties[.]” The trial court had written that this language leads logically to the conclusion that arbitrators make determinations of arbitrability and the courts shall have no role. The Fourth disagreed, writing instead that this language only clarifies how much authority arbitrators should have; it does not expand their authority. Parties are free to give arbitrators that authority, the court wrote, but they can and should explicitly say so.

The Fourth next looked at the issue of Hartford’s standing as a subrogee — an issue of first impression in Illinois. Equistar argued that Hartford, as Trigen’s subrogee, cannot compel arbitration because it was not a party to the arbitration agreement. Their agreement did not explicitly include subrogees, assignees or other third parties, and in fact explicitly said the parties did not have the right to incur obligations to third parties on behalf of the other, or commit the other party to a contract. Hartford countered that its right to arbitration comes through subrogation law, not the contract, making this language irrelevant. Illinois caselaw in Ervin v. Nokia, Inc., 349 Ill. App. 3d 508, 512, 812 N.E.2d 534, 539 (2004) defines contract-based theories that can bind a nonsignatory to an arbitration agreement, but subrogation is not among them. Two cases from other states have come to different conclusions on the issue, the court noted. And Illinois subrogation law puts the subrogee (in this case, Hartford) directly into the shoes of the subroger (Trigen).

Ultimately, the Fourth decided that Hartford should have the same rights and obligations as Trigen. That means Hartford does not merely have a right to arbitrate, the court wrote — it is required to do so under Trigen’s contract. Thus, it upheld the trial court’s decision to deny the motion to stay arbitration. This meant affirming the decision as a whole, even though it noted that it disagreed with the trial court that arbitrators should determine standing.

Fifth District Reverses Decision to Deny Arbitration Clause in Fiduciary Duty Case

December 21, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Our Illinois alternative dispute resolution lawyers noted an opinion from the Fifth District Court of Appeal reversing a trial court that declined to compel arbitration. In Hollingshead v. A. G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., No. 1-09-0067 (Ill. 5th Jan. 22, 2009), the court ruled there simply was not enough evidence to support the trial court’s decision to deny to compel arbitration. The case pits Carol Hollingshead, independent administrator of the estate of Selma Elliott, against Elliott’s investment company and Leonard Suess, an investment advisor there and Elliott’s son-in-law. Hollingshead sued the defendants for various causes of action related to financial mismanagement, but defendants moved to compel arbitration under several contracts related to the investment accounts. The trial court denied this motion without an explanation or an evidentiary hearing.

Elliott passed away in 2003 at the age of 101. During her lifetime, she had an account at A.G. Edwards, managed by Suess. Her power of attorney was granted to her daughter, Judy Suess, at the time of her death, so that Judy Suess could manage Elliott’s affairs. Those affairs included 11,000 shares of stock in the pharmaceutical company Merck, which had a value of $985,000 in 2001. Around 1994, defendants used that value to open up a margin account and buy other stock. Unfortunately, the value of her portfolio dropped significantly and the defendants began selling off the Merck stock to cover margin calls. Plaintiff claims this triggered tax liabilities that could easily have been avoided if the sale had happened after Elliott’s death. She sued them for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and negligence.

However, Elliott had signed three contracts with Edwards before her death and Judy Suess as power of attorney had signed another, and all of them had an arbitration agreement. Defendants moved to dismiss the case and compel arbitration on this basis. The trial court heard arguments that did not get into the record on appeal, then denied the motion without comment. Defendants filed an interlocutory appeal. They argued that the contracts are the only evidence in the record and clearly apply to the lawsuit. The plaintiff argued in response that the arbitration agreements are substantively and procedurally unconscionable and the product of undue influence, all of which make them unenforceable. Defendants responded that this is a question for an arbitrator to decide.

The Fifth started with this last issue. It did not agree. Under caselaw, arbitrability is an issue for the courts unless the parties have specifically agreed otherwise, it wrote. The plaintiff is not challenging the validity of the contracts as a whole — indeed, she is relying on them in the breach of contract count.

Next, the court examined the plaintiffs’ arguments to invalidate the arbitration agreements. Under the Federal Arbitration Act, arbitration agreements are enforceable except “on such grounds that exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” This includes the plaintiff’s claims of unconscionability and undue influence. However, the court found that generally, there was no support in the record for the plaintiff’s arguments. To support the claims of unconscionability, the plaintiff made allegations in her complaint about Elliott’s age and the relationship between her and the Suesses, but did not provide any evidence, the court said. Nor do the allegations in the complaint, even if taken as true, support those defenses, it added. Under caselaw, advanced age is not enough in itself to show that a person is incapable of signing contracts, the court noted, and there is nothing per se procedurally unconscionable about having a relative for a broker.

Similarly, the Fifth found no evidence in the record to support the undue influence claim, aside from unsubstantiated claims about the familial relationship between Elliott and the Suesses. The plaintiff also made claims for substantive unconscionability, saying the $1,575 cost of arbitration is too high and the forum is biased. Again, the Fifth found, these claims are not supported by sufficient evidence in the record. It also dismissed a claim that waiving judicial review is inherently unconscionable, noting that this is directly contradicted by the FAA. For those reasons, the Fifth found that the trial court should not have declined to compel arbitration without an evidentiary hearing. It reversed that decision and remanded it to the trial court for further proceedings — including an evidentiary hearing, the Fifth said, if the plaintiff requests one.

Filing Counterclaims Does Not Waive Contractual Right to Arbitration, Fourth District Rules

November 30, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

As Illinois mediation and arbitration lawyers, we were interested to see a decision confirming that parties may invoke their contractual rights to arbitrate even after some participation in the other side’s lawsuit. TSP-Hope Inc. v. Home Innovators of Illinois, Inc., No. 1-07-1028 (Ill. 4th June 26, 2008) pits a Springfield housing nonprofit, TSP-Hope Inc., against residential construction company Home Innovators of Illinois. The two made a contract in July of 2005 for the construction of houses. In the summer of 2006, construction stopped. Shortly after, TSP-Hope sued for breach of contract and other causes.

About a month later, the defendant filed for an extension of time to plead, saying the plaintiff had served a demand three days before for the defendant to file suit to enforce its liens. Another month later, the defendant filed an answer and counterclaims, including duress in contract formation, breach of contract and enforcement of the liens. After a series of motions and counter-motions, the defendant in July of 2007 filed to dismiss all claims and compel arbitration. In this motion, the defendant claimed that the plaintiff had verbally agreed to mediation before the lawsuit. The parties’ contract specified that they should use mediation at first, and then binding arbitration with a specified arbitration company, to resolve disputes. The trial court eventually granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss a breach of contract claim, saying it had not been waived by participation in the litigation. After a motion to reconsider failed, the plaintiff appealed.

Unusually, the Fourth said, the defendants did not file a brief in the appeals case. However, the court said it had sufficient evidence from the plaintiffs’ brief. That brief argued that defendants had waived their right to arbitration by waiting almost 11 months to assert it, and by submitting arbitrable issues to the trial court in the meantime. To determine whether this is true, the Fourth wrote, it needed to determine whether the defendant had acted inconsistently with its right to arbitrate. Under Cencula v. Keller, 152 Ill. App. 3d 754, 757, 504 N.E.2d 997, 999 (1987), this can include submitting arbitrable issues to the court.

The Fourth then ran down a list of past cases in which a party was found to have waived its right to arbitration. In all of those cases, the court noted, parties had conducted discovery and made pleadings that were more than just responses to the other side. Neither of these was true in this case, it said. It is true that the defendant’s counterclaims could have waived its right to arbitration, the court said, but this is not automatic. In this case, the counterclaim “appeared to be responsive to plaintiff’s complaint” as well as the plaintiff’s demand to enforce its liens. Under those circumstances, the Fourth concluded that the defendant had not acted inconsistently with its right to arbitrate. Thus, the appeals court affirmed that trial court was correct to find that there was no waiver.

Nursing Home Cannot Compel Arbitration Under Unclear Contract, Third District Rules

November 10, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Our Illinois arbitration attorneys noted an appellate decision reminding parties to arbitration contracts to ensure that their language is clear as to what exactly should be arbitrated. In Peterson v. Residential Alternatives of Illinois, No. 3-09-0743 (Ill. 3rd June 7, 2010), Rachel Peterson, as the administrator of the estate of Jacob H. Terhorst, sued Terhorst’s former nursing home. Terhorst died at a home run by Residential Alternatives of Illinois, and the estate had sued the nursing home company for wrongful death and violations of the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act. The home succeeded in compelling arbitration at the trial court level, but the Third District Court of Appeal reversed, saying the language of the arbitration agreement was unclear.

Terhorst was 92 when he entered Hawthorne Manor in Peoria. He was a resident from Nov. 29, 2006 to June 2, 2007, the day of his death. On Jan. 7, 2009, his estate’s executor, Ann Bonono, filed a lawsuit against Hawthorne Manor’s parent company, Residential Alternatives. That claim alleged that Residential Alternatives failed to provide adequate care to Terhorst and neglected and abused him, resulting in injuries, pain, mental anguish, financial costs and eventually, his death. It sought more than $100,000 for wrongful death and violations of the Nursing Home Care Act. The defendant filed an answer to plaintiff’s complaint.

But less than a month later, the defendant also moved to dismiss the claim and compel arbitration. In support, it included a contract and a separate arbitration agreement, both dated Nov. 29, 2006 and signed by legal representatives for the company and for Terhorst. Neither document mentioned the other, and the contract indicated that it contained seven pages, all seven of which were the contract itself. The arbitration agreement stated that “any and all disputes arising hereunder shall be submitted to binding arbitration and not to a court for determination.” The next paragraph stated that in the event that a dispute was determined not covered by the agreement, the parties agreed that the dispute should be heard by a judge rather than a jury, and that the prevailing party had the right to recover its costs.

In response to the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, the plaintiff argued that no enforceable agreement existed; that the defendant had waived its right to arbitration by answering the complaint; and that Illinois public policy is against waiving any rights under the Nursing Home Care Act. Ultimately, the trial court agreed with the defendant that the arbitration agreement controlled the dispute and sent the case to arbitration. This appeal followed. During its pendency, plaintiff Rachel Peterson was granted leave to replace plaintiff Ann Bonomo.

On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable; that it was void pursuant to the Act, caselaw and public policy; that the defendant had waived its rights; and that the wrongful death claim should not be arbitrated because its plaintiffs were not parties to the agreement. The Third noted that there was no dispute over the contract. However, the defendant argued that it and the arbitration agreement should be considered one unified document, whereas the plaintiff argued that they should be considered separate documents.

Caselaw shows that some courts have chosen to interpret separate documents executed on the same day by the same people as the same document, the court noted. However, it said, these were documents that referred to or expressly incorporated other documents. Furthermore, the court said, it is well established in Illinois law that parties may not incorporate one agreement into another without expressly indicating an intention to do so, and there is a presumption against interpreting contracts in a way that adds conditions that could easily have been explicitly added in writing. In this case, the Third said, the parties could easily have added an arbitration agreement to the contract itself, but they did not — in fact, the seven-page contract states that it is complete within those seven pages. The court found that this choice was deliberate and consistent with case law, so it rejected the argument that both documents should be considered one document.

Next, the Third looked at whether the arbitration agreement itself creates an independent contractual obligation to arbitrate all controversies arising out of the nursing home care. The court concluded that it could not interpret the agreement that way. The agreement called for arbitration with this language: “Without limiting any rights set forth in other provisions of this AGREEMENT, any and all disputes arising hereunder shall be submitted to binding arbitration and not to a court for determination.” This is circular language, the court said, and it does not reference the nursing home care contract at all. A later reference to “any other document signed or initialed in connection with this AGREEMENT” also does not adequately indicate any intention to connect with the contract. For that reason, the court wrote, it cannot agree that the two documents should be treated as one. Thus, the court found that the case should not go to arbitration because the nursing home contract was not subject to the arbitration agreement. The trial court’s decision was reversed.

Federal Arbitration Act Controls Dispute Between Construction Companies, Third District Finds

November 9, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Our Illinois mediation and arbitration attorneys were interested in a court ruling on the controlling legal authority in a dispute over whether an issue is arbitrable. R.A. Bright Construction Inc. v. Weis Builders Inc., No. 3-09-0910 (Ill. 3rd June 9, 2010) pits construction company Weis Builders against its subcontractor, R.A. Bright Construction. A dispute later arose in which Bright claimed Weis owed it $765,701 under two contracts the parties had signed. Bright sued and Weis moved to dismiss, or alternatives, to compel arbitration. The trial court denied the motion, but two judges from the Third District Court of Appeal reversed that decision under the Federal Arbitration Act. A third dissented, saying the FAA cannot apply because no interstate commerce was involved in the dispute.

Weis, a Minnesota company with offices in four states, was originally hired to build a Wal-Mart in Lockport, Ill. Weis in turn hired Bright to do concrete work for $2.93 million, and later, underground utilities work for $679,567. Neither party alleged fraud or misrepresentation in those contracts. For reasons the opinion does not discuss, Bright alleged that Weis owed it $765,701 on those two contracts, which Weis denied. Bright sued and Weis filed a motion to dismiss and compel arbitration, or alternatively, to stay and compel arbitration, under the Federal Arbitration Act. Before that motion could be heard, Bright filed an amended complaint seeking to enforce a mechanic’s lien against Wal-Mart for the money. The trial court later denied the motion from Weis and this appeal followed.

In its appeal, Weis argued that section 2 of the FAA compels arbitration because the Illinois Supreme Court has found that the FAA mandates judicial enforcement of arbitration agreements “in any … contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce.” Bright disagreed for two reasons. It argued that the FAA does not apply because no interstate commerce was involved in this transaction. And even if it does, Bright said, the clause in question violates the Illinois Building and Construction Contract Act.

The Third started with the issue of whether the contract between Weis and Bright was interstate commerce. The U.S. Supreme Court has found that the FAA preempts state laws hostile to arbitration and is intended to exercise power over interstate commerce to the fullest, the court noted. To interpret this situation, it relied in part on Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U.S.265, 278, 130 L. Ed. 2d 753, 767, 115 S. Ct. 834, 841 (1995), in which the Supreme Court overturned the Alabama Supreme Court on a motion to compel arbitration. In that case, a homeowner was suing a pest control company for inadequate work, and the pest control company argued that the FAA applied because it had a “slight nexus” with interstate commerce. While the work was contracted and performed locally, the companies were multistate and some materials came from out of state.

Despite the intention of the parties to stay local, the Supreme Court wrote, a strict reading of the facts showed that the commerce was in fact interstate. Similarly, the Third wrote, the transaction between Bright and Weis was an interstate transaction in fact. Weis is a multistate corporation and Bright bought some materials from a Wisconsin company. Thus, their contract was interstate commerce within the meaning of the FAA and that law applied.

The Third next disposed of Bright’s argument that the clause violates the Illinois Building and Construction Contract Act, because the FAA allows consideration of contract defenses “upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” While this is valid, the court said, a defense based on the Act is not grounds to contest “any contract”; it is grounds only to contest construction and building contracts. It noted that the state Supreme Court had recently made a similar ruling in Carter v. SSC Odin Operating Co., No. 106511 (Il April 15, 2010). Finally, the Third rejected a forum non conveniens defense, saying this is not a general contract defense but a procedural mechanism. Thus, a two-judge majority reversed the trial court and remanded the case with orders to stay and compel arbitration. The dissenter, Justice McDade, disagreed that the contract between Bright and Weis was a transaction involving interstate commerce, and thus argued that the FAA does not apply to this case. “Nothing beyond ‘the multistate nature of one of the parties’ (slip order at 8) demonstrates that the transaction ‘in fact’ involved interstate commerce.”