Court Opinion

ID: 9782514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:54:50.014728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:04.593080
License: Public Domain

OPALA, J.,
concurring.
T1 I write separately from the court to explain my own reasons for joining today's opinion.
4 2 The authority of an arbitration panel to act upon a claim or dispute is drawn from the parties' consent.1 The record gives no support to a permissible legal conclusion that Schuster consented (¢) either to an arbitration of any claims against him as an individual party to a dispute or (2) to any other claims which by operation of law could be made against him individually. No contractual promise to arbitrate can be extended to include disputes lying clearly beyond the four corners of the agreement's terms of which it is a part or those entered into in a capacity different from that in which the signatory to be charged appears to stand in the contract's text.
13 Absent some express contractual enlargement, a party's consent to arbitration will be construed as limited to disputes arising from the performance of the contract of which the arbitration clause forms a part and will bind the signatory parties in the same capacity as that which appears from the contract's text as well as from the signatures placed upon it.2 If a wider sweep were to be given to a party's arbitration consent, it would extend the promise far beyond the *157parameters of the contract.3 The breadth of a promise presents a question of law to be answered by the court upon consideration of the agreement's provisions. As the court's opinion informs us, the breadth of one's consent to arbitrate is governed by contract law's principles.

. Voss v. City of Oklahoma City, 1980 OK 148, 618 P.2d 925.

. Wright Lumber Co. v. Herron, 199 F.2d 446 (10th Cir.1952).

. Local 5-857 Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Int'l Union v. Conoco, Inc., 320 F.3d 1123 (10th Cir.2003); Cannon v. Lane, 1993 OK 40, 867 P.2d 1235.