Court Opinion

ID: 9422645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:03:45.535839+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:38.069044
License: Public Domain

The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Black,
concurring.
We agree with the Court that fraud in the procurement of an arbitration contract, like fraud in the. procurement of any contract, makes it void and unenforceable and that this question of fraud is a judicial one, which must be determined by a court. To allow this question to be decided by arbitrators would be to that extent to enforce the arbitration agreement even though steeped in the grossest kind of fraud. Compare Robert Lawrence Co. v. Devonshire Fabrics, 271 F. 2d 402 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1959). For this reason we acquiesce in the Court’s present disposition of the case on this single issue. But we point out that this disposition leaves open questions of great importance to laborers and materialmen who under the Miller Act are entitled to have their controversies settled in independent courts of. law:
(1) Can a member of the special class of laborers and materialmen which Congress, in the public interest, has protected by fixing the venue for their claims under the Miller Act in a particular federal court deprive himself of that kind of remedy as a condition of his obtaining the employment or the purchase of his materials?
(2) Can any person, before any dispute has arisen, agree to arbitrate all future disputes he may have and *173thereby lose his' right to go into court to try his claim according to due process of law?
(3) Can-the Arbitration Act, in light of its language and legislative history, be applied to laborers and materialmen or to construction projects subject to the Miller Act?
(4) Is a construction project, like the one in this case, one “involving commerce” so as to come within the restricted scope of the Arbitration Act?