Be Careful What You Ask for: Selecting Forums for Arbitration

October 6, 2014 by

On October 2, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rendered its decision in Inetianbor v. CashCall, Inc. A copy of the slip opinion can be found here. Although this case did not involve a non-compete agreement, the Eleventh Circuit’s guidance regarding contractual arbitration provisions may have implications for those drafting and litigating non-competes.

The arbitration clause at issue in Inetianbor was a bit unusual (at least as to the specified forum), but the underlying dispute between the parties was not out of the ordinary. The plaintiff, Mr. Inetianbor, was a Florida resident who borrowed money from Western Sky Financial, LLC. The defendant CashCall, Inc. serviced this loan. Mr. Inetianbor sued the servicer in a Florida court, alleging, among other things, violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. After removing the case to a federal court, the servicer then moved to compel arbitration of the dispute pursuant to the terms of Mr. Inetianbor’s loan agreement with Western Sky. This loan agreement contained the following arbitration provision: “You agree that any Dispute … will be resolved by Arbitration, which shall be conducted by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Nation by an authorized representative ….”

After the trial court initially compelled arbitration in accordance with this provision, Mr. Inetianbor contacted the Tribe in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. In response, Mr. Inetianbor received a letter from a Tribal Judge stating that the Tribe “does not authorize Arbitration,” but after some back-and-forth, a Tribal Elder was eventually chosen to arbitrate Mr. Inetianbor’s dispute. However, at the preliminary arbitration hearing, the arbitrator explained that “this is a private business deal” and that “[t]he Tribe has nothing to do with any of this business.” When Mr. Inetianbor brought the arbitrator’s statements to the attention of the trial court in Florida, the court was persuaded to reconsider its previous orders compelling arbitration.

The trial court determined that it was not possible to conduct an arbitration in accordance with the parties’ agreement, because the arbitration was not being conducted by an “authorized representative” of the Tribe. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the trial court’s decision. The dispute between Mr. Inetianbor and his loan servicer will now be resolved through judicial proceedings, not through arbitration.

So what does this mean for non-compete agreements? It is probably fair to say that most practitioners have never encountered a non-compete agreement specifying resolution of disputes through arbitration conducted by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Nation. However, employment contracts sometimes contain both non-compete provisions and arbitration provisions. As an initial matter, such arbitration provisions may add additional steps to the process of obtaining injunctive relief from a court when an employer seeks to enforce its non-compete provisions. This said, when the arbitration provisions are enforceable, it is the arbitrator — and not a court — who will ultimately determine the scope and application of the non-compete provisions. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Inetianbor underscores the need to pay attention to the forum(s) specified for arbitration when drafting or litigating non-compete clauses subject to arbitration.

Filed Under: Non-Compete Agreements Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Eleventh Circuit Confirms Georgia Legislature Wisely Did a “Do Over” on the New Non-Compete Statute

August 8, 2012 by

In golf, a hacker who slices his tee shot into the woods will often announce that he’s going to take a “mulligan”, i.e., hit another ball as if the first one never happened. Georgia’s General Assembly took a legislative mulligan in re-enacting its new non-compete statute, and a recent Eleventh Circuit opinion, Becham v. Synthes (U.S.A.), 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 11225 (11th Cir. 2012), should make the folks under the Gold Dome glad they did.

In 2009, the Georgia General Assembly passed HB 173, which was a bill designed to make non-compete agreements and other post-employment restrictive covenants much easier for employers to enforce. The effectiveness of HB 173 was dependent upon a positive ratification by Georgia voters of a state constitutional amendment authorizing the new law. In November 2010, Georgia voters passed the amendment by a 2-1 margin. Because HB 173 specifically stated that it would become effective the day after ratification of the amendment, legislators, lawyers and employers all assumed that Georgia finally had its new employer-friendly non-compete statute in place as of November 3, 2010.

Shortly after the ratification of the amendment, however, some non-compete attorneys and commentators, including this author, began to have serious concerns about the effectiveness of the new law due to a discrepancy between the effective date of the new law, November 3, 2010, and the effective date of the constitutional amendment, which by law was January 1, 2011 (because the amendment, due to a legislative oversight, did not have a specified effective date).  The analysis was that because the new statute was not constitutionally authorized on the date it became effective, it was unconstitutional and could not be revived by the later effectiveness of the amendment. This author shared the concerns of practitioners with the sponsor of HB 173, Rep. Wendell Willard, and he eventually concluded that the statute needed to be re-passed in the next session in an abundance of caution. (Go here for a discussion between the author and Rep. Willard about the events leading up to re-passage of the bill).

Thus, in 2011, the General Assembly passed a new bill, HB 30 (codified at OCGA §13-8-50 et seq.), that was essentially identical to the 2009 bill. This new statute, however, by its terms only applied to agreements executed on or after the new effective date of May 11, 2011. This left some uncertainty about how Courts would treat non-compete agreements executed during the legislative twilight zone period between the effective dates of the first and second versions of the new non-compete statute. Would courts give any deference to employers who had their employees execute new non-competes in reliance upon the much ballyhooed passage of the new statute?

That question was answered in the negative by the Eleventh Circuit in the recent Becham opinion. In that case, an employer was attempting to enforce a non-compete agreement dated December 1, 2010, after the ratification of the constitutional amendment and the effective date of HB 173, but before the effective date of the corrective 2011 statute. In affirming the grant of summary judgment in favor of the employee-defendant, the Eleventh Circuit held that “HB 173 was unconstitutional and void the moment it went into effect”, thus confirming the analysis of the practitioners who first reached out to the bill sponsor. The effect of that ruling was that the Court applied the much more onerous pre-statute body of Georgia non-compete law, and the plaintiff’s non-compete covenants were held to be unenforceable

BURR POINT:  The Georgia lawmakers’ nimble legislative repair of its previous misstep on the timing of the new non-compete statute means that all’s well that ends well, unless you’re an employer caught in the gap of the effective dates of the two versions of the law.  For Georgia employers, it is now clear that your non-competes must be executed on or after May 11, 2011, in order to take advantage of the more lenient new statute. For more information or help further understanding the changes to Georgia’s non-compete laws, contact a member of Burr & Forman’s Non-Compete and Trade Secrets team.

Filed Under: Georgia, Non-Compete Agreements Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,