The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to resolve a circuit split regarding whether a non-signatory to an agreement to arbitrate may compel arbitration under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the “New York Convention”) based on the doctrine of equitable estoppel.

The nation’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Texas federal court’s order compelling an at-will employee to arbitrate a pay dispute with her employer.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has withdrawn its earlier opinion following a second rehearing of a case involving arbitration.

Professor David Allen Larson, Senior Fellow in the Dispute Resolution Institute and John H. Faricy Professorship in Empirical Research at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has published a thoughtful journal article titled, “Digital Accessibility and Disability Accommodations in Online Dispute Resolution: ODR for Everyone,” Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2019.

We recently stumbled upon an article regarding the sudden prevalence of arbitration agreements (between doctors and patients) in the context of medical procedures. Here is an excerpt: Arbitration agreements seem to be popping up in every kind of transaction these days. For those who are unfamiliar with them, they are contracts where parties give up their rights to go to court and present their cases to judges and juries. These probably make sense in a lot of commercial relationships like with credit cards, exterminators, cell phones or FedEx. It will in most cases streamline the dispute resolution process by eliminating the time and delay that most litigants experience if they are trying to move their case through our already-overburdened legal system. I have been suing doctors and hospitals in Miami for over twenty years, and recently I have seen these arbitration agreements pop up in plastic surgery and nursing home cases with an alarming frequency. I do not believe that health care is a commercial transaction. Sure, money is exchanged for services, but the inclusion of arbitration agreements by doctors and clinics highlights the fact that, to most providers, patients are nothing more than customers — customers who carry a limited profit upside and a potentially unlimited legal exposure downside, when and if things go wrong. That being said I would like to clarify that at this time this is no universal. There are plenty of medical centers and plastic surgeon offices in which the patient is handled properly and with respect. To provide an example at Body sculpting Long Island there is no such agreement to be signed and the patient is fully briefed on the risks any procedure, whether big or small could incur. The patient then takes a well informed decision fully aware of the situation. This human approach while less common, is present in enough places for me to make a small mention. Continue reading here. Any comments? Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law

by Holly Hayes The American Nurse, the official publication of the American Nurses Association, published the article The Art of Engagement: Nurses, ANA work to address conflict. Here is an excerpt: Engage in conflict? Many nurses would rather head for the hills, or at least down the hall. But at Gundersen Lutheran Health System, nurses are being asked to face conflict head on to create a better workplace and ensure safer patient care. “In general, nurses would rather avoid conflict,” said Rebecca Inglis, MSN, RN, patient education clinical practice nurse at Gundersen, located in La Crosse, WI. “So we’ve become very adept at creating and doing work-arounds.” Conflict can stem from a disagreement over a patient’s treatment plan, worker scheduling, or having differing values, for example. According to Inglis and other nurses familiar with the phenomenon, poor communication is often at the heart of conflict. And that, Inglis said, “puts patients at risk, teamwork at risk, and joy at risk.” Read the full article here. For information on nurses’ experiences with disruptive behavior in the workplace, see our post here. Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at holly@karlbayer.com.