UNAVAILABILITY OF A DESIGNATED ARBITRATION FORUM DOES NOT PROVIDE AN IMPOSSIBILITY DEFENSE
On appeal, a circuit court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration was reversed for several reasons. First, the circuit court erred by allowing submission of parol evidence after determining that language in the arbitration agreement requiring the parties to select their arbitrators from a “nationally recognized arbitration association” was unambiguous. Second, the circuit court erred by finding the arbitration agreement to be invalid based on the argument that the contractually designated nationally recognized arbitration association would not take on the pre-dispute arbitration agreement case and the arbitration agreement was therefore impossible to perform. The appellate court found the impossibility argument to be without merit since the FAA authorizes a court to appoint arbitrators when the parties fail to name them, making arbitration possible even in the event that a designated forum will not take the case. Spring Lake NC, LLC v. Figueroa, No. 2D12-1202 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Dec. 14, 2012).
This post written by Abigail Kortz.
