Chassen v. Fidelity Nat’l Financial — civil / arbitration — affirmance — Smith

A divided Third Circuit panel today ruled in favor of a civil defendant seeking to compel individual arbitration (that is, non-class arbitration; the opinion refers to it as bipolar arbitration). The court held that the defendant did not waive its arbitration-clause defense — even though it did not raise the defense in two and a half years of expensive litigation below, and even though it could have but did not raise the arbitration defense to obtain class arbitration the whole time — because an effort to compel individual arbitration would have been futile under then-existing law. The majority ruled that the factors it previously had announced for deciding when a party waived an arbitration defense did not control when the sole reason for the delay in asserting the defense is futility.

Judge Rendell — who, as I’ve observed, has been a major force in the court’s recent en banc litigation — dissented. Her opinion began:

The majority’s opinion is flawed for a clear and obvious reason: it relies on caselaw that has no application here. Therefore, I must respectfully dissent.

In Muhammad v. County Bank of Rehoboth Beach, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that “the presence of the class-arbitration waiver in Muhammad’s consumer arbitration agreement render[ed] that agreement unconscionable.” 912 A.2d 88, 100 (N.J. 2006). Yet, despite the lack of a class arbitration waiver in the arbitration clauses here, the majority holds that a New Jersey court in 2009, at the outset of this case, would have found Muhammad controlling here. I reject that view, and urge you to read Muhammad and the actual arbitration clauses at issue here. Doing so will lead inexorably to one conclusion: this case is not Muhammad, and a motion by the Defendants in 2009 to compel arbitration thus would have been anything but futile. Moreover, the majority has expanded the concept of futility beyond what we as a court should recognize.

Seems like a good bet for a petition for en banc rehearing.

Joining Smith was Roth, with Rendell dissenting. Arguing counsel were Michael Quirk of William Cuker for the appellants and Michael O’Donnell of Riker Danzig for the defendant.