No waiver of arbitration right

September 25, 2017

Among other holdings related to the arbitrability of a dispute between a business and a former employee, the Fifth Court rejected an argument that the defendant business had waived its right to invoke arbitration: “In short, many factors weigh against a waiver finding: (i) Tantrum is the defendant, not the plaintiff, (ii) Tantrum’s delay in seeking arbitration was not extreme, and Carson has not shown an improper reason for the delay, (iii) Tantrum did not seek a merits disposition of Carson’s claims, and it did not conduct an inordinate amount of discovery, (iv) Tantrum’s counterclaims are arguably compulsory counterclaims, (v) Carson did not show that the parties have spent an inordinate amount of time or money litigating this case, and (vi) Carson did not show that the discovery Tantrum conducted would have been unavailable in arbitration or would not be useful in the arbitration.” Tantrum Street LLC v. Carson, No. 05-16-01096-CV (July 24, 2017).