Opinion ID: 4578255
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: if either you or us chooses, any claim or dispute

Text: (AS DEFINED BELOW) BETWEEN YOU AND US WILL BE DECIDED BY ARBITRATION AND NOT IN COURT AND NOT BY A JURY TRIAL . . . . Any claim or dispute, whether in contract, tort, statute or otherwise (including the interpretation and scope of this Arbitration Agreement and the arbitrability of any claim or dispute), between you and us or our employees, agents, successors or assigns, which arise out of or relate to this Agreement, your loan application, or any resulting or related transaction or relationship (including any such relationship with third parties who do not sign this Agreement) shall, at your or our election, be resolved by neutral, binding arbitration and not by a court action. Any claim or dispute is to be arbitrated by a single arbitrator on -1- an individual basis and not as a class or any other representative type of action. D. Ct. Dkt. 59-6 at 8. The Credit Agreement defines the terms “we” and “us” as “JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., and its successors and assigns, and any other holder of this Agreement.” Id. at 6. Chase sold Neal’s loan to Jamestown Funding Trust in 2017. Jamestown is related to Navient Credit Finance, an affiliate of NSL. NSL then became the servicer of the loan. Neal sued Chase and NSL in 2018 for breaching the Credit Agreement by imposing an interest rate exceeding the maximum permitted under Ohio law. Neal based his complaint on the belief that NSL purchased his student loan from Chase. After learning that Jamestown was the actual owner of the loan, Neal dismissed Chase as a defendant, but did not add Jamestown. Instead, Neal added the other Navient defendants to his suit. Navient moved to compel arbitration and stay proceedings pursuant to the Credit Agreement’s arbitration clause. Neal opposed the motion, asserting that Navient could not compel arbitration because it is not a party who may compel arbitration under the definition of “us” in the Credit Agreement. The district court agreed with Neal and denied Navient’s motion to compel arbitration. The court determined that while the scope of the arbitration clause includes disputes between Neal and nonsignatories, the contractual language does not allow nonsignatory agents to compel arbitration. The district court found that the definition of “us”—Chase “and its successors and assigns, and any other holder of this Agreement”—does not include Navient because it is an agent to Chase’s successor and not a successor, assign, or holder of the Credit Agreement itself. The district court also concluded that Ohio’s alternate estoppel doctrine does not prevent Neal from disavowing the arbitration agreement because Navient cannot compel arbitration under the clear language of the agreement. Navient timely appealed. -2-