Contracts Commons^™

At The Brink Of Free Agency: Creating The Foundation For The Messersmith-Mcnally Decision - 1968-1975, Edmund P. Edmonds

Edmund P. Edmonds

"One of the most dramatic periods in baseball’s long history of labor relations occurred from 1968 through 1975. The Major League Baseball Players Association negotiated baseball’s first Basic Agreement in 1968 without the benefit of any leverage that could alter most of Organized Baseball’s long practices that controlled the players’ mobility and wages. In 1975, however, the union won an arbitration panel hearing that determined that pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith were free agents after playing one full season under the renewed option year of their contracts and filing a grievance under the newly adopted arbitration process. This stunning …

The Arbitration Clause As Super Contract, Richard Frankel

Richard Frankel

It is widely acknowledged that the purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act was to place arbitration clauses on equal footing with other contracts. Nonetheless, federal and state courts have turned arbitration clauses into “super contracts” by creating special interpretive rules for arbitration clauses that do not apply to other contracts. In doing so, they have relied extensively, and incorrectly, on the Supreme Court’s determination that the FAA embodies a federal policy favoring arbitration.

While many scholars have focused attention on the public policy rationales for and against arbitration, few have explored how arbitration clauses should be interpreted. This article fills …