Your Arbitration Agreement Should Define Its Own Limits

From the Burns & Levinson in-house advisor, a cautionary tale in the form of a recently decided case in the First Circuit. The would-be plaintiff, a business that was a former exclusive sales agent for Verizon Wireless, alleged that after it was terminated, a Verizon employee told its customers that it was no longer in business- a lie – and provided those customers with information for another Verizon contact. The plaintiff thought it had a strong RICO, state unfair trade and tort case against Verizon and the employee. Unfortunately for the plaintiff, the First Circuit – reversing a district court – found that nothing in the language of the arbitration agreement allowed for this matter to go anywhere but an arbitration forum.