Opinion ID: 200404
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Waiver By Grove Europe, Grove Worldwide, Bronto, PTP and BET

Text: 27 Applying the Jones Motor factors to the parties that were defendants before 2000 (Grove Europe, Grove Worldwide, Bronto, PTP, and BET), the conduct of each constitutes an implied waiver. 28 There are no per se rules as to the length of delay necessary to amount to waiver, see Menorah, 72 F.3d at 222 (citing case in which thirteen months' delay was found insufficient to constitute waiver). Here, the four years' delay from filing in August 1996 to removal in August 2000, encompassing a period of active state court litigation, greatly exceeds that found acceptable in this circuit. See Creative Solutions, 252 F.3d at 33 (delay of five months is not waiver); see also Navieros, 120 F.3d at 316 (one-month delay in context of expedited litigation sufficient to find waiver); Menorah, 72 F.3d at 222 (delay of more than fifteen months sufficient); Jones Motor, 671 F.2d at 42 (delay of more than one year sufficient). 29 The length of delay must be evaluated in the context of litigation activities engaged in during that time. See, e.g., Creative Solutions, 252 F.3d at 33 (waiver not found when there was no discovery or other activity aside from plaintiff's filing a request for production); Jones Motor, 671 F.2d at 42 (waiver found when party seeking arbitration engaged in deposition-taking, a pre-trial conference, cross-motions for summary judgment, and oral argument). The defendants here were involved in at least five depositions and thirteen pre-trial conferences. Prejudice to the plaintiffs is easily inferred from the necessary expenditures over that period of time. See Menorah, 72 F.3d at 222 (no error in finding that litigation expenses over the course of a more than fifteen-month delay amounted to prejudice); see also Navieros, 120 F.3d at 316 (prejudice found as a result of expenses related to litigation that would not have been incurred in arbitration proceedings). 30 Furthermore, the context of these defendants' belated assertion of their right to arbitrate also points to waiver. Removal to federal court to compel arbitration occurred in August 2000, less than two months before the scheduled trial date. Jones Motor directs attention to whether the enforcement of arbitration was brought up when the trial was near at hand. 671 F.2d at 44; see Navieros, 120 F.3d at 316 (moving for arbitration the day before trial considered as part of waiver analysis). Given a four-year-long litigation, first raising arbitration less than two months before trial unquestionably constitutes invoking it when the trial was near at hand. 31 Grove Worldwide stands in a slightly different posture. It asserted arbitration as an affirmative defense in its June 1997 answer to the Middlesex complaint. Grove Worldwide never participated in document discovery. But it also never followed up on its 1997 claim of arbitration and let the matter rest until 2000. The length of its delay results in the same prejudice to plaintiffs and so Grove Worldwide has also waived. 32