Opinion ID: 1830345
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the magnuson-moss warranty-federal trade commission improvement act prevents appellees from invoking arbitration, thereby permitting a trial by jury, at the election of april [sic] parkerson.

Text: ¶ 32. In 1925, Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C.A. §§ 1, et seq., creating a federal policy in favor of alternative dispute resolution. Later the Supreme Court stated: The Act, after all, does not mandate the arbitration of all claims, but merely the enforcement  upon the motion of one of the parties  of privately negotiated arbitration agreements. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U.S. 213, 219, 105 S.Ct. 1238, 1242, 84 L.Ed.2d 158 (1985). In discussing the legislative history of the FAA, the Supreme Court stated: The House Report accompanying the Act makes clear that its purpose was to place an arbitration agreement `upon the same footing as other contracts, where it belongs,' H.R.Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 1 (1924), and to overrule the judiciary's longstanding refusal to enforce agreements to arbitrate. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U.S. at 219-20, 105 S.Ct. 1238. Section 2 of the FAA states that written arbitration provisions in contracts shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract. 9 U.S.C.A. § 2 (2001). Further, the court must compel a party to such a contract to submit to arbitration proceedings: The court shall hear the parties, and upon being satisfied that the making of the agreement for arbitration or the failure to comply therewith is not in issue, the court shall make an order directing the parties to proceed to arbitration in accordance with the terms of the agreement. 9 U.S.C.A. § 4 (2001). ¶ 33. In Mississippi, for most of this century, there were two lines of case law concerning arbitration. One line of cases  relying on either public policy concerns or the courts jealously guarding the exclusiveness of their jurisdiction  exhibited a hostility towards pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements: It is settled at common law that a general agreement, in or collateral to a contract, to submit to final determination by arbitrators the rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to any and all disputes that may thereafter arise under the contract is voidable at will by either party at any time before a valid award is made, and will not be enforced by the courts, because of the rule that private persons cannot, by a contract to arbitrate, oust the jurisdiction of the legally constituted courts. Machine Prods. Co. v. Prairie Local Lodge No. 1538 of Int'l Ass'n of Machinists, AFLCIO, 230 Miss. 809, 94 So.2d 344, 348 (1957). However, there was another line of case law concerning arbitration that had co-existed concurrently in this state: This state, as a matter of public policy, has long allowed parties to arbitrate their differences and to give effect to an arbitration award. Scottish Union & Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Skaggs, 114 Miss. 618, 75 So. 437, 438 (1917). That policy has even greater force in our present era of overcrowded judicial dockets. If there be any type of arbitration award we should loathe to disturb, it should be that between private contracting parties respecting a matter of interest only to themselves and their respective pocket books. Craig v. Barber, 524 So.2d 974, 977 (Miss.1988). In Hutto v. Jordan, 204 Miss. 30, 36 So.2d 809, 812 (1948), this Court stated: Articles of agreement to arbitrate, and awards thereon are to be liberally construed so as to encourage the settlement of disputes and the prevention of litigation, and every reasonable presumption will be indulged in favor of the validity of arbitration proceedings.