Federal Arbitration Act

An order compelling appraisal and staying the case is not appealable.

Not under Section 1292A1, the statute that lets certain orders be appealed before a case is over, and not under the Federal Arbitration Act.

Why does that matter to a board in Fort Myers?

Because a published opinion binds the federal courts across the 11th Circuit and Florida sits inside it.

It just means that an arbitrator or a board of arbitrators that are, you know, pseudo judges make the decision versus a jury of your peers, right?

Correct, yeah, there's something called the Federal Arbitration Act, and I won't get into the gory details of all this, but yeah, essentially you have a mini trial in front of one arbitrator.

Usually it's a panel of arbitrators.

There are certain rules, like the AAA rules of commercial arbitration.

Compares other reasons for affirming the arbitration award also don't hold up.

First, federal courts cannot be compelled to endorse flagrant law-breaking just because an errant or rogue arbitrator happens to order it, and the Federal Arbitration Act cannot reasonably be read otherwise.

Second, Compeer's waiver argument is essentially that Cal didn't move for reconsideration.

Cal recognized that the district court's phase one ruling squarely controlled the public policy issue at phase two and said, all right, we'll reserve all our appellate rights.

I mean, I think Zeidman, which I want to emphasize again, I agree with, I endorse.

I think that Zeidman lays the groundwork for seeing why public policy also survives.

I mean, Zeidman, I think, articulates that manifest disregard for the law exceeds the arbitrator's powers and comes within the text of the Federal Arbitration Act in that way.

Didn't a panel in an appeal in this case say...

It was absolutely intended to be a total ban, and it was law in California briefly.

But this is where the state collided with the supremacy of federal law, specifically the Federal Arbitration Act, the FAA.

We really need to define the FAA.

What is the history here? Because I don't think a lot of people realize how incredibly old this law is.

Right.

The Federal Arbitration Act is a foundational piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress way back in nineteen twenty-five.

Nineteen twenty-five.

Yeah.

Employers with arbitration agreements containing class waivers can move to compel individual arbitration in Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis two thousand eighteen and AT&T Mobility LLC v.

Conception two thousand eleven support enforcement under the Federal Arbitration Act.

Forum matters.

The Class Action Fairness Act, twenty-eight USC section one thousand three hundred thirty-two D, requires an aggregate amount in controversy above dollar five million and at least one hundred class members, so a class would need about five thousand members at the dollar one thousand tier before attorney fees to reach federal court on that basis.

We don't care that everybody in 1907 assumed that the reservation was gone and has acted that way for a century.

Uh, show us where Congress used the specific words 'disestablish' or 'go home.'" I mean, Gorsuch's opinion even cites to a Federal Arbitration Act case for the proposition that, a- and, and here's what he cites, "Our charge is usually to ascertain and follow the original meaning of the law before us." And, uh, right? The four liberals signed onto that.

So, you know, Gorsuch gets there by looking at the two most significant laws that were passed by Congress in 1906 and 1907.

The first was the Five Civilized Tribes Act, which gave the president the power to remove and replace tribal chiefs.