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Religious Arbitration And The New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, Michael A. Helfand
Religious Arbitration And The New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, Michael A. Helfand
Michael A Helfand
This Article considers a trend towards what I have termed the "new multiculturalism," where conflicts between law and religion are less about recognition and symbolism and more about conflicting legal orders. Nothing typifies this trend more than the increased visibility of religious arbitration, whereby religious groups use current arbitration doctrine to have their disputes adjudicated not in U.S. courts and under U.S. law, but before religious courts and under religious law. This dynamic has pushed the following question to the forefront of the multicultural agenda: under what circumstances should U.S. courts enforce arbitration awards issued by religious courts in accordance …
Fighting For The Debtor's Soul: Regulating Religious Commercial Conduct, Michael A. Helfand
Fighting For The Debtor's Soul: Regulating Religious Commercial Conduct, Michael A. Helfand
Michael A Helfand
Although courts often think of religion in terms of faith, prayer, and conscience, many religious groups are increasingly looking to religion as a source of law, commerce, and contract. As a result, courts are being called upon to regulate conduct that is simultaneously religious and commercial. In addressing such cases, some courts minimize the religious features of the case and simply focus on its secular elements while others over-exaggerate the religious features of the case and thereby refuse to adjudicate the dispute on Establishment Clause grounds. As an example of this dynamic, I explore the constitutionality of imposing sanctions for …
A Pro-Congress Approach To Arbitration And Unconscionability, Stephen Friedman
A Pro-Congress Approach To Arbitration And Unconscionability, Stephen Friedman
Stephen E Friedman
This Essay endeavors to resolve a current controversy involving the application of the unconscionability doctrine to arbitration agreements. The pro-arbitration policies of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the anti-arbitration instincts of the unconscionability doctrine are difficult to reconcile. Instead of clarity in this area of law, we have a series of hints and clues, often contradictory, from the Supreme Court. Although Professor David Horton and I share a desire to clarify this area of the law, we have nearly opposite views about how this should be accomplished. This Essay sets forth my position and also responds to Unconscionability Wars, …
Contracting Out Of Process, Contracting Out Of Corporate Accountability: An Argument Against Enforcement Of Pre-Dispute Limits On Process, Meredith R. Miller
Contracting Out Of Process, Contracting Out Of Corporate Accountability: An Argument Against Enforcement Of Pre-Dispute Limits On Process, Meredith R. Miller
Meredith R. Miller
There have been many well-articulated and convincing critiques aimed at mandatory arbitration. Indeed, presently before Congress is proposed legislation titled the Arbitration Fairness Act, that would ban pre-dispute arbitration in the consumer, franchise and employment contexts. However, maligned as the plaintiff bar's pro-lawsuit legislation, the Arbitration Fairness Act is predicted to have very little chance of enactment. Consequently, across varying industries, the pre-dispute arbitration regime endures unheedingly. Thus, this Article sets aside the arguments aimed generally at pre-dispute arbitration clauses and, instead, sets its sights on some of the terms that seem to arise in such clauses. The focus here …
Confirming Piskei Din In Secular Court, Michael Helfand
Confirming Piskei Din In Secular Court, Michael Helfand
Michael A Helfand
No abstract provided.
Arbitration Provisions: Little Darlings And Little Monsters, Stephen Friedman
Arbitration Provisions: Little Darlings And Little Monsters, Stephen Friedman
Stephen E Friedman
This Article takes a new approach to resolving the growing tension between the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the unconscionability doctrine. While arbitration provisions are favored under the FAA, they are viewed far more skeptically by courts applying unconscionability to refuse enforcement of one-sided arbitration provisions. This tension, which has increased dramatically in recent years, represents a major fault line in contract law. Jurisprudence and commentary on this issue have assumed that courts have the authority to apply the unconscionability doctrine to arbitration provisions. This Article refutes that assumption, taking the position that Congress, in passing the FAA, removed from …