Litigation & Arbitration
Apr. 6, 2026
9th Circuit says arbitration disputes must be resolved individually
A 9th Circuit panel ruled issue preclusion cannot invalidate arbitration agreements across multiple plaintiffs, requiring individual arbitration and prompting criticism that the decision undermines efficiency and longstanding civil procedure doctrine.
For decades, the issue-preclusion rule has streamlined the civil court system by avoiding the re-litigation of decided issues in a never-ending, "Groundhog Day" style, time loop.
But in an opinion that law professor Shaun P. Martin, a civil procedure authority, called "shocking," a federal appellate panel ruled on April 1 that even though two arbitrators invalidated arbitration agreements signed by two former traveling nurses suing their agency over alleged wag...
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