Court Opinion

ID: 9845618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:25:17.26047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:16.241688
License: Public Domain

KAUGER, Justice
with whom DOOLIN, J., joins concurring specially.
A.
I concur that New York law applies to the arbitration agreement. Even had the majority found New York inapplicable, Oklahoma law could not be used to defeat arbitration because the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-14 (1982), pre-empts state law when it conflicts with the purpose of the Act.1
B.
Even so, a question of public interest has been squarely tendered — is a contract for the purchase of commodities, which contains an agreement to submit disputes to arbitration, unconstitutional? The majority has chosen net to confront the effect of the Okla. Const, art. 23, § 8 on such agreements. In essence, it provides that any provision of a contract by which any constitutional benefits are sought to be waived shall be null and void.
Nevertheless, any concern about the constitutionality of arbitration in Oklahoma is misplaced for the following reasons: 1) Statutory and common law arbitration exist co-extensively;2 2) The common law of England, as it existed at statehood, allowed arbitration, and it was incorporated into Oklahoma law;3 Instead of forbidding arbitration, the drafters of the Oklahoma Constitution embraced it in three separate articles: art. 5, § 46; art. 6, § 21; and art. 9, § 42;4 3) “The common law is a dynamic and growing thing, and its rules arise from the application of reason to the changing condition of society”;5 4) A collective bargaining agreement forms a new common law — the law of the workplace, and the Okla. Const, art. 2, § 156 forbids “any law *301impairing the obligation of contracts”; 5) Only if the terms of the contract are disputed does the right to trial by jury arise;7 6) Parties may choose to use the laws of another state which allow arbitration;8 7) If federal law is impacted, state law is pre-empted by the Federal Arbitration Act,9 and the Labor Management Relations Act;10 8) Failure to recognize arbitration may result in a denial of equal protection under the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States, and under the Okla. Const, art. 5, § 46, which forbids the enactment of special laws concerning the jurisdiction of arbitrators, or under art. 5, § 51 which prohibits the granting of exclusive rights and privileges to any association, corporation, or individual. If private parties are precluded from agreeing to submit disputes to arbitration concerning grievance arbitration under the Oklahoma Uniform Arbitration Act, 15 O.S.1981 §§ 801-818, so then, too, must the firefighters and police, 11 O.S.1981 §§ 51-101 to 51-113;11 and 9) Because grievance arbitration awards are reviewable by the courts under the Oklahoma Uniform Arbitration Act, 15 O.S.1981 § 811, there is not a denial of access to courts which is prohibited under the Okla. Const, art. 2, § 6.12
In Long v. DeGeer, 753 P.2d 1327, 1330 (Okla.1987), the concurring opinion expressed concern that under art. 23, § 8, express or implied contractual waivers of the fundamental right to a jury trial appear to be unenforceable. Evidently, those are the same concerns expressed by the appellant here. Obviously, for the reasons discussed above, bargained-for grievance arbitration, which is not pre-empted by federal law, is not unconstitutional per se. The real questions presented are whether the parties agreed to an intentional voluntary relinquishment of a known right and whether they intended to waive the right to trial by jury, such as is permitted by 12 O.S.1981 § 59113 or 15 O.S.1981 § 803(A).14
Oklahoma’s art. 23, § 8 is unique. Although no other state has an identical constitutional provision, California’s art. I, § 16 is helpful. It provides that a jury trial may be waived in a civil action only in compliance with the statute.15 California’s *302Civil Procedure Code § 631, which is similar to Oklahoma’s § 591, permits waivers. Under California law, the constitutional right to trial by jury may be waived by filing written consent with the judge or court clerk; by consenting in open court, and entering the consent into the record; or by failing either, to request a jury trial, to appear at trial, or to pay advance jury costs.16 Because the issue here is the right to a jury trial, the California analysis in a comparable situation is useful.
The California Supreme Court in Madden v. Kaiser Found. Hosp., 17 Cal.3d 699, 131 Cal.Rptr. 882, 552 P.2d 1178, 1186-87 (1976), found that § 631 presupposes a pending action, and that the statute relates to the way a party can waive the right to demand a jury trial, rather than to a trial before a judicial fact-finder. Section 631 does not purport to prevent parties from avoiding jury trial because their controversy was not submitted to a court of law in the first instance. It has always been understood that parties could avoid a jury trial, either by settling the underlying controversy, or by agreeing to a method of resolving the cause which need not invoke a judicial forum. However, the Madden Court did not suggest that one could be deprived of the right to trial by jury if, unknowingly, the person had executed a document which purported to exact a waiver.17 Under those circumstances, the agreement is avoidable.
If we construe § 591 to mean that a jury trial in a contract case may only be waived by filed written consent, oral consent in court, or failure to appear at the trial, negotiated settlements could be obliterated based on the allegation of the denial of the art. 23, § 8 right to jury trial. This is an absurd result, and we may not presume that the Legislature intended to enact an absurdity.18 A reasonable construction of § 591 is that it applies to pending actions. Parties may use other forms of resolving a controversy by the intentional waiver of the right to jury.
Article 23, § 8 was not intended nor should it be construed to preclude arbitration. It would have been much easier for the framers of the Oklahoma Constitution to have excluded arbitration once and for all, rather than to have included it three times. They refused to do so. We may not do so by judicial fiat. Just as § 591 has been construed to allow the parties to knowingly waive a jury trial without violating the Oklahoma Constitution, so should the parties to a commodities contract be allowed to knowingly and intentionally waive the right to trial by jury by agreeing to submit contractual controversies to arbitration.

. Securities Indus. Ass'n v. Connolly, 883 F.2d 1114, 1119 (1st Cir.1989), cert, denied, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2559, 109 L.Ed.2d 742 (1990).

. House Grain Co. v. Obst, 659 S.W.2d 903, 905 (Tex.App.1983).

. Title 12 O.S.1981 § 2 provides:
"The common law, as modified by constitutional and statutory law, judicial decisions and the condition and wants of the people, shall remain in force in aid of the general statutes of Oklahoma; but the rule of the common law, that statutes in derogation thereof, shall be strictly construed, shall not be applicable to any general statute of Oklahoma; but all such statutes shall be liberally construed to promote their object.”
Title 25 O.S.1981 § 29 provides:
"The rule of common law, that statutes in derogation thereof are to be strictly construed, has no application to the laws of this state, which are to be liberally construed with a view to effect their objects and to promote justice.”
In Scott v. Avery, All E.R. 1, 7 (1856), the House of Lords Court ruled that under common law principles it would enforce agreements to arbitrate future disputes.
The framers of statutes and constitutional provisions must always be presumed to be familiar with settled rules of statutory and constitutional construction, and they may act on such rules and expect courts to follow them in construing such provisions, and courts should scrupulously apply such rules. Wimberly v. Deacon, 195 Okla. 561, 144 P.2d 447, 450 (1943).

. Okla. Const, art. 5, § 46 provides in pertinent part:
“The Legislature shall not, except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, pass any local or special law authorizing: ...
Regulating the practice or jurisdiction of, or changing the rules of evidence in judicial proceedings or inquiry before the courts, justices of the peace, sheriffs, commissioners, arbitrators, or other tribunals, or providing or changing the methods for the collection of debts, or the enforcement of judgments or prescribing the effect of judicial sales of real estate; ...”
Okla. Const, art. 6, § 21 provides:
“The Legislature shall create a Board of Arbitration and Conciliation in the Department of Labor and the Commissioner of Labor shall be ex-officio chairman.”
Okla. Const, art. 9, § 42 provides:
"Every license issued or charter granted to a mining or public service corporation, foreign or domestic, shall contain a stipulation that such corporation will submit any difference it may have with employees in reference to labor, to arbitration, as shall be provided by law.”

. Brigance v. Velvet Dove Restaurant, Inc., 725 P.2d 300, 303 (Okla.1986).

. Okla. Const, art. 2, § 15 provides:
*301"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall ever be passed. No conviction shall work a corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate:' Provided, that this provision shall not prohibit the imposition of pecuniary penalties.”

. Boyden v. Lamb, 152 Mass. 416, 25 N.E. 609, 611 (1890).

. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Shear, - Okl. -, 796 P.2d 296 (Okla.1990).

. See 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-14 (1982). Securities Indus. Ass'n v. Connolly, see note 1, supra.

. Title 29 U.S.C. § 173(d) (1978) provides:
"(d) Final adjustment by a method agreed upon by the parties is declared to be the desirable method for settlement of grievance disputes arising over the application or interpretation of an existing collective-bargaining agreement. The Service is directed to make its conciliation and mediation services available in the settlement of such grievance disputes only as a last resort and in exceptional cases.”

. See, Maule v. Independent School Dist. No. 9, 714 P.2d 198, 203-04 (Okla.1985).

. Heffner v. Jacobson, 100 N.J. 550, 498 A.2d 766, 768 (1985). See also, "Arbitration and the Common Law", 10 Lawyers’ Arbitration Letter 1, 4 (1986).

. Title 12 O.S.1981 § 591 provides:
"The trial by jury may be waived by the parties, in actions arising on contract, and with the assent of the court in other actions, in the following manner: By the consent of the party appearing, when the other party fails to appear at the trial by himself or attorney. By written consent, in person or by attorney, filed with the clerk. By oral consent, in open court, entered on the journal.”

. Title 15 O.S.1981 § 803(A) provides:
"A. On application of a party showing an agreement described in Section 2 of this act, and the opposing party’s refusal to arbitrate, the court shall order the parties to proceed with arbitration. If the opposing party denies the existence of the agreement to arbitrate, the court shall proceed summarily to the determination of the issue raised and shall order arbitration if the court resolves the issue in favor of the moving party; otherwise, the application shall be denied.”

. Cal. Const, art. I, § 16 provides in pertinent part:
"Trial by jury is an inviolate right and shall be secured to all, but in a civil cause three-*302fourths of the jury may render a verdict. A jury may be waived in a criminal cause by the consent of both parties expressed in open court by the defendant and the defendant’s counsel. In a civil cause a jury may be waived by the consent of the parties expressed as prescribed by statute_”

.Cal.Civ.Proc.Codes § 631 (West Supp.1989) provides in pertinent part:
"(a) Trial by jury may be waived by the several parties to an issue of fact in any of the following ways:
(1) By failing to appear at the trial.
(2) By written consent filed with the clerk or judge.
(3) By oral consent, in open court, entered in the minutes or docket.
(4) By failing to announce that a jury is required, at the time the cause is first set for trial, ...
(5) By failing to deposit with the clerk, or judge, advance jury fees ...”

. See, Lawrence v. Walzer & Gabrielson, 207 Cal.App.3d 1501, 256 Cal.Rptr. 6, 10 (1989); Ramirez v. Superior Court, 103 Cal.App.3d 746, 163 Cal.Rptr. 223, 229 (1980).

. Johnson v. Johnson, 674 P.2d 539, 542 (Okla.1983).