Opinion ID: 1763556
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Categories Four and Five

Text: The Bank argues that involvement of the various forms of communication recited in Campbell's affidavit, such as the United States Postal Service and other methods of communication, as well as the existence of federal regulations governing loan transactions and deposits in general, can support arbitrability. We disagree with this argument also. Much of the rationale in the preceding section weighs with equal force against this argument. Additionally, the substantial-effect test of Sisters of the Visitation logically contemplates the converse, namely, the de minimis effect. Thus, in Aronov Realty Brokerage, Inc. v. Morris, 838 So.2d 348 (Ala.2002), a plurality of this Court recently concluded that a $1,000 earnest-money deposit on the purchase of a condominium unit paid to Regions Bank, allegedly a foreign corporation, was de minimis as compared to the entire purchase price [of $106,000 plus miscellaneous charges and fees]. 838 So.2d at 359. Consequently, the transaction did not satisfy the Sisters of the Visitation substantial-effect test. This was true, even when considered in the aggregate with combined payments to State Farm, also a foreign corporation, ... of $217 and $214 for contents insurance and flood insurance, and a $495 payment for a home warranty through American Home Shield, also a foreign entity. Morris, 838 So.2d at 359. The combined payments represent[ed] less than one percent of the purchase price. Id. See also Ex parte Learakos, 826 So.2d 782 (Ala.2001) (the ostensible transfer of the funds for the plaintiff's $1,000 earnest money payment from the drawee bank in Illinois to the Alabama payee of the check drawn in Alabama [did] not establish a substantial effect of [a] real estate sale and purchase on interstate commerce). The interstate communications services and sundry federal regulations on which the Bank seeks to rely touch this transaction so remotely and tangentially as to warrant no consideration. Holding that a transaction is subject to the FAA simply by virtue of the ordinary use of interstate communication media in its furtherance, or by Congressional regulation of some aspect of one party's business, would effectively transform every local transaction into a national one. As Sisters of the Visitation points out, such an approach is impermissible under our federal system of government. 775 So.2d at 767 (citing NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937)).