SCOTUS Consistent, Again, on Federal Arbitration Act
(November 26) The U.S. Supreme Court today issued an opinion in Nitro-Lift Technologies, L.L.C. v. Howard, firmly upholding the idea that if there’s a challenge to the validity of a contract which compels arbitration, an arbitrator must decide the validity of that contract (except in the special case where the arbitration clause itself is challenged).
This is a reiteration of clear precedent from 2005. The only wonder is that state supreme courts have defiantly attempted to decide otherwise three times in the last two years: this time from Oklahoma, previously from California and West Virginia (twice on the same facts).
(Alison Frankel’s On the Case for Thompson-Reuters, at http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/westlaw-legal-research/practitioner-insights)