Unconscionability Found: A Look at Pre-Dispute Mandatory Arbitration Agreements 10 Years after Doctor's Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto

Authors

Sandra F. Gavin, Visiting Associate Professor, Rutgers School of Law, Camden, New Jersey.

Abstract

This Article first explores the Supreme Court's initially reluctant application of the FAA's contract approach to enforceability of arbitration agreements which lasted well into the early 1980s. It then examines federal preemption of state law and the evolution of the arbitration contract as we know it today. Finally, it looks at the application of defenses that exist “at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract” as applied over the past ten years following the Court's decision in Doctor's Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto. This author examines a decade of decisional law and finds a new doctrine of arbitration jurisprudence developing under the FAA that is sensitive to the unique concerns raised by adhesion arbitration agreements. Whether the courts are inappropriately stretching the unconscionability defense is matter of speculation.

Recommended Citation

Sandra F. Gavin, Unconscionability Found: A Look at Pre-Dispute Mandatory Arbitration Agreements 10 Years after Doctor's Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto, 54 Clev. St. L. Rev. 249 (2006)
available at https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol54/iss3/3