MPACT Construction Group, LLC v. Superior Concrete Constructors, Inc. (2/4/04 IndSCt) [Contracts]
Sullivan, Justice
When the owner failed to pay for work and supplies on its travel plaza, a subcontractor foreclosed on its mechanic’s lien. The general contractor sought to compel arbitration among the owner, general, and all subcontractors. While we acknowledge arbitration’s utility in this kind of multiparty dispute, our inspection of the contract documents indicates that the subcontractors did not agree to arbitrate the issues in dispute here. * * *Barry Daugherty v. Industrial Contracting & Erecting (2/5/04 IndSCt) [Workers' Compensation]Dickson and Rucker, JJ., concur. Boehm, J., dissents with a separate opinion in which Shepard, C.J., joins.
I respectfully dissent. This is a typical multiparty construction litigation, where various parties are pointing fingers in various directions and claiming that whatever went wrong with the project is somebody else’s—anybody else’s—problem. I agree that state law governs the formation of the contract and that nothing in the Federal Arbitration Act requires that these disputes between subcontractors and the general contractor be arbitrated unless the parties agreed to that method of dispute resolution. I believe, however, that these agreements do call for arbitration of the entire multiparty dispute among the owner, the general contractor, and these several subcontractors. * * *
William S. Bennett v. State of Indiana (2/5/04 IndSCt) [Criminal Law & Procedure]
Posted by Marcia Oddi at February 5, 2004 04:59 PM