Opinion ID: 1504729
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of Uniform Arbitration Act

Text: In her first point for reversal, Ms. Lancaster makes two related arguments. She contends that the chancery court erred in failing to find that the Uniform Arbitration Act was inapplicable under Ark.Code Ann. § 16-108-201 (1987) because the dispute was between employer and employee and, further, that the court erred in finding that Ms. Lancaster had waived her right to object to the Conway Board of Realtors' power to conduct an arbitration hearing by making an appearance. The crucial question in this appeal concerns the applicability of the Uniform Arbitration Act. It is jurisdictional in character and must be resolved before other matters may be treated. Although it was subsequently amended in 1993, the governing statutory provision concerning application of the Uniform Arbitration Act in 1991 read as follows: A written agreement to submit any existing controversy to arbitration or a written provision to submit any controversy thereafter arising between the parties bound by the terms of the writing is valid, enforceable, and irrevocable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract; provided, that this chapter shall have no application to personal injury or tort matters, employer-employee disputes, nor to any insured or beneficiary under any insurance policy or annuity contract. Ark.Code Ann. § 16-108-201 (1987). [1] (Emphasis added.) This court, citing the same statutory section, specifically held in Jim Halsey Co. v. Bonar, 284 Ark. 461, 683 S.W.2d 898 (1985), that questions in the law of torts are not subject to written agreements to arbitrate. By the same token, employer-employee disputes, whether existing or prospective, were not, under § 16-108-201, subject to written agreements to arbitrate in 1991. Two offer-and-acceptance contracts are at issue here, and the question of employer-employee status is directly related to the question of which is the operative instrument giving rise to the controversy. The first, subsequently voided contract of July 10, 1991, was executed during the term of Ms. Lancaster's employment by Ms. West. According to Ms. Lancaster, Ms. West's cause of action is necessarily dependent upon that first document, which was executed when Ms. Lancaster was in Ms. West's employ, and it is of no moment that a second offer-and-acceptance contract was executed later. The second contract, dated July 22, 1991, was executed after Ms. Lancaster had severed her relationship with Classic Realty. Contrary to Ms. Lancaster's position, the sale was consummated only through that instrument, and payment of commission was due only at that point. Consequently, Ms. West's cause of action (or, more precisely, grounds for complaint to the Arbitration Board) did not ripen until the second offer-and-acceptance contract had been executed and the realtor's commission was payable. Thus, the provisions of the Uniform Arbitration Act were applicable to the matter at hand. Having determined that Ms. Lancaster was subject to the Act, it is unnecessary for us to consider the related issue of waiver, which would have been relevant only in the event that an employer-employee relationship had existed at the time the sale was consummated.