Some Confusing Matters Relating to Arbitration Under the United States Arbitration Act (with I. O. Murphy)

Abstract

This is a review of the judicial administration of the United States Arbitration Act. It is restricted chiefly to matters relating to the qualification of arbitration agreements under the Act and to the remedies provided in the Act to render such agreements irrevocable and enforceable. Accordingly, consideration of judicial determinations upon the first five sections of the Act constitutes the major part of this article. The review is intended to point up a variety of issues many of which are important to those who may be concerned with arbitration of either commercial or labor controversies under the Act. Some of these questions derive in part from frailties in drafting the Act and in part from views advanced by some of the courts in resolving those frailties in the course of litigation. Some accrue more directly from the case law made by the courts without much reference to limitations or un-certainties of statutory text. In some instances contradictory determinations of the same issue have been made by two or more courts of appeals. In some instances decisions by the district courts would escape these contradictory determinations on grounds not considered by the court of appeals. Doubtless some day the Supreme Court will resolve some of these diversities. In the meantime, it must be reckoned that the law of the Act may be different in one or more respects in one circuit from what it is in another.