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The Testamentary Foundations Of Commercial Arbitration, Peter B. Rutledge

Scholarly Works

This Article offers the first systematic treatment of the relationship between commercial arbitration and testamentary arbitration. (By testamentary arbitration, I mean an arbitration clause contained in a will requiring beneficiaries to resolve differences over the estate by means of an enforceable decision by a private party rather than judicial resolution in a probate court.) Recent scholarship and jurisprudence have questioned the enforceability of these arrangements as incompatible with the requirement of a written "agreement" between parties to the arbitration. Contrary to these views, close examination of the historical record of testamentary arbitration leading to the Federal Arbitration Act's enactment reveals …