The following is an excerpt from a column written by Gene Commander examining a trial court’s jurisdiction to determine threshold arbitrability issues. The column, published by Colorado Lawyer, is accessible here.
This article addresses whether a trial court has jurisdiction to determine threshold arbitrability issues in disputes governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), where the contracting parties’ arbitration agreement expressly delegates that authority to an arbitrator.
This jurisdictional question arose from numerous conflicting federal courts of appeals decisions regarding the legitimacy of a judicially created exception to the arbitrator’s contractual authority to enforce the parties’ binding arbitration agreement.