Opinion ID: 1791640
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether legal constraints external to the parties' agreement foreclose the arbitration of those claims.

Text: ¶ 49. While the parties do not address this issue, we are compelled to at least briefly do so since this is the second prong in the required two-prong test in determining the validity of a motion to compel arbitration under the FAA. East Ford, 826 So.2d at 713. This issue was addressed by the United States Supreme Court in Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U.S. 614, 105 S.Ct. 3346, 87 L.Ed.2d 444 (1985). The Court stated: That is not to say that all controversies implicating statutory rights are suitable for arbitration. There is no reason to distort the process of contract interpretation, however, in order to ferret out the inappropriate. Just as it is the congressional policy manifested in the Federal Arbitration Act that requires courts liberally to construe the scope of the arbitration agreements covered by the Act, it is the congressional intention expressed in some other statute on which the courts must rely to identify any category of claims as to which agreements to arbitrate will be held unenforceable. (Citations omitted).       In sum, the Court of Appeals correctly conducted a two-step inquiry, first determining whether the parties' agreement to arbitrate reached the [issues].........and then, upon finding that it did, considering whether legal constraints external to the parties' agreement foreclosed the arbitration of those claims. We endorse its rejection of Soler's [contentions]. 473 U.S. at 627-28, 105 S.Ct. at 3354-55. ¶ 50. Succinctly stated, a meticulous review of the record, and our discussion thus far, clearly reveal that there is absolutely no existing legal constraint external to the parties' arbitration agreement which would out of necessity foreclose the arbitration of those claims.