Opinion ID: 1741832
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sandra Dickinson's Claims

Text: The claims of Sandra Dickinson, however, stand on different ground. The sole basis for Chris Myers's motion to compel arbitration was the arbitration clause in the Retail Buyer's Order, which was signed only by David Dickinson. Procedurally, therefore, the issue whether Sandra Dickinson, a nonsignatory, is bound by this arbitration clause is fundamentally different from the issues in other cases in which this Court has recently considered whether nonsignatories were bound; see, e.g., Ex parte Isbell, 708 So.2d 571 (Ala.1997), in which a nonsignatory was attempting to rely on an arbitration clause to compel a signatory of the contract to arbitrate the signatory's claims against the nonsignatory. Here, a signatory, Chris Myers, is attempting to compel a nonsignatory, Sandra Dickinson, to arbitrate. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 2, provides: A written provision in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract or transaction, or the refusal to perform the whole or any part thereof, or an agreement in writing to submit to arbitration an existing controversy arising out of such a contract, transaction, or refusal, shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.  (Emphasis added.) By these express terms, the FAA preserves traditional principles of contract law. It is hornbook contract law that someone who is not a party to a contract cannot be bound by the contract. Lakeshore Drive Recreation Club, Inc. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 398 So.2d 278, 284 (Ala.1981) (Torbert, C.J., dissenting). Therefore, `a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute he has not agreed to submit.' Old Republic Ins. Co. v. Lanier, 644 So.2d 1258, 1260 (Ala.1994). Procedurally, this case is postured identically with Thomson-CSF, S.A. v. American Arbitration Ass'n, 64 F.3d 773 (2d Cir. 1995), in which the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit refused to compel arbitration. Id. at 780. In that case, as in this one, the signatory was seeking to compel a nonsignatory to arbitrate. The court considered that procedural distinction to be an important factor. Id. at 779. After considering Sunkist Soft Drinks, Inc. v. Sunkist Growers, Inc., 10 F.3d 753 (11th Cir.1993), cert. denied sub nom., Sunkist Growers, Inc. v. Del Monte Corp., 513 U.S. 869, 115 S.Ct. 190, 130 L.Ed.2d 123 (1994); J.J. Ryan & Sons, Inc. v. Rhone Poulenc Textile, S.A., 863 F.2d 315 (4th Cir.1988); and McBro Planning & Dev. Co. v. Triangle Elec. Constr. Co., 741 F.2d 342 (11th Cir.1984)cases that have been cited in dissenting opinions by Justices of this Court, see, e.g., Ex parte Stripling, 694 So.2d 1281 (Ala.1997)(Maddox, J., dissenting); Ex parte Martin, 703 So.2d 883 (Ala. 1996) (Hooper, C.J., dissenting); and Ex parte Jones, 686 So.2d 1166 (Ala.1996)(Maddox, J., dissenting), Thomson 5 noted that the circuits have been willing to estop a signatory from avoiding arbitration with a nonsignatory when the issues the nonsignatory is seeking to resolve in arbitration are intertwined with the agreement that the estopped party has signed. Id. at 779 (emphasis in original). It then distinguished those cases, with the following explanation: As the district court pointed out, however, `[t]he situation here is inverse: [defendant-appellee Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation (`E & S')], as signatory, seeks to compel Thomson, a non-signatory. ' While E & S suggests that this is a non-distinction, the nature of arbitration makes it important. Arbitration is strictly a matter of contract; if the parties have not agreed to arbitrate, the courts have no authority to mandate that they do so.... In the line of cases discussed above, the courts held that the parties were estopped from avoiding arbitration because they had entered into written arbitration agreements, albeit with the affiliates of those parties asserting the arbitration and not the parties themselves. Thomson, however, cannot be estopped from denying the existence of an arbitration clause to which it is a signatory because no such clause exists.  Id. at 779 (emphasis added). Sandra Dickinson, like Thomson, never agreed to arbitrate anything. Yet Myers, as E & S sought unsuccessfully to do in Thomson, seeks to compel her to arbitrate, and it seeks to compel her simply on the ground that Myers and David Dickinson had agreed to arbitrate. That is not the law of contracts in this state. The mere fact that the Nissan was apparently to be owned jointly by David and Sandra Dickinson is not dispositive. In Peterson v. David Spud Bishop Contractor, Inc., 547 So.2d 492 (Ala.1989), for example, we held that a wife, who was not a signatory to a contract for the renovation of a home owned jointly with her husband, was not obligated to pay for renovations done pursuant to the contract her husband signed. Id. at 493. We explained: If we held otherwise, then a husband or wife would rarely be able to enter a contract of this nature with a third party without the spouse's being deemed to have ratified the contract. Id. For these reasons, we grant the petition to the extent the trial court's order compels arbitration of Sandra Dickinson's claims. Because she was not a signatory to a contract containing an arbitration clause, she cannot be compelled to arbitrate. Otherwise, the petition is denied. PETITION GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. ALMON, SHORES, and KENNEDY, JJ., concur. BUTTS, J., concurs in the result. HOOPER, C.J., and MADDOX, HOUSTON, and SEE, JJ., concur in part and dissent in part.