Editors
Carolyn G. Nussbaum Nixon Peabody LLP | Christopher M. Mason Nixon Peabody LLP |
§ 1.1. Introduction
In past years, we have tried to be comprehensive in our survey of developments in alternative dispute resolution, covering all cases pending or decided in the United States Supreme Court, all the materially substantive opinions issued by the federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, and all the materially substantive opinions issued by the highest courts in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico), together with comments on legislative and administrative developments. Every year, the volume of these opinions and developments increased as alternative dispute resolution became more and more widely accepted and used.
But, perhaps in part because of the courts beginning to catch up with backlogs from the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, and perhaps because alternative dispute resolution was in some situations over the past two years the only practical alternative for many disputes to reach a conclusion, trying to cover virtually all the individual opinions and activity we had covered in the past seems to have reached a level where including all of the increased volume of case law may detract from the value of a summary. So this year, while we have reviewed all the same source material (all the Supreme Court, federal Circuit Court, and highest state court opinions, together with legislative and administrative activity) we are not trying to report on virtually every decision. Instead, we have tried to include matters we consider particularly important, interesting, or unique.
To begin with, despite our projection last year that the United States Supreme Court might issue a useful decision in Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., No. 19‐963 (U.S. argued Dec. 8, 2020) in 2021, the Court ultimately dismissed the writ of certiorari in that case as having been improvidently granted. As a result, the Court did not issue any substantive arbitration decisions in 2021.
But the Court did grant certiorari in five cases that remain pending before the Court as of December 2021. Three of those involve splits among the federal Courts of Appeals regarding the propriety of “looking through” pleadings to establish federal jurisdiction and the limits of federal court’s authority to compel discovery in international arbitration under 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a).
In addition to the cases involving Circuit splits now under review by the Supreme, the federal Courts of Appeals continue throughout 2021 to grapple with what it means to be “engaged in commerce” for section 1 exemption under the FAA.
Furthermore, in our 2020 ADR Annual Review, we explained that the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (the “Division”) issued “Updated Guidance Regarding the Use of Arbitration and Case Selection Criteria,” which signaled an interest in increasing the use of arbitration. Although the arbitration guidance was ultimately published in the Federal Register, its impact remains unclear at this time.
We also discussed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act (“FAIR Act”), which has been introduced in one form or another for many years and generally would invalidate pre-dispute arbitration agreements in the employment, civil rights, consumer, and antitrust contexts, and would require employers to litigate workplace disputes in court. The bill was reintroduced as H.R. 963 in February 2021, and the House Judiciary Committee signed off on the bill in early November 2021. Of course, it must still pass both the House and the Senate before being signed by the President, but this is something that litigators should continue …
