EIGHTH CIRCUIT AFFIRMS ARBITRATION DECISION AGAINST ILLINOIS FARMERS INSURANCE
Recently, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals filed its opinion ruling on an appeal from the District Court’s orders dismissing Farmers’s counterclaim that Alpine Glass violated Minnesota’s anti-incentive statute, granting summary judgment in favor of Alpine on a breach of contract issue, and denying Farmers’s motion to vacate an arbitration award. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that Alpine Glass did not violate the anti-incentive statute by charging a contingent price, and that the breach of contract issue was improperly framed by Farmers as a breach of a unilateral contract. Finally, the Court affirmed the District Court’s denial of Farmers’s motion to vacate the arbitration award concluding that the arbitrator applied the correct standard to the issue under the pertinent Minnesota statute. The Court upheld the arbitrator’s conclusion that Farmers failed to pay the competitive price. Alpine Glass, Inc. v. Illinois Famers Ins. Co., No. 10-1689 (8th Cir. June 17, 2011).
This post written by John Black.
