No, it’s not legal-education-related, but rather real-estate-education-related. Which, according to the plaintiff, didn’t actually teach her what it promised to teach her. So she sued. The defendant, however, noted that she’d signed a contract with an arbitration clause and so they shouldn’t be in court. And the court agreed, in Kane v. Yancy, CIVIL ACTION NO. H-15-1861 (behind paywall), a recent case out of the Southern District of Texas.
Arbitration clauses are, of course, generally looked upon favorably by courts. In this case, there was no dispute that the contract contained an arbitration clause and that the plaintiff signed the contract. Rather, the plaintiff argued that the arbitration clause was unconscionable. The plaintiff claimed the arbitration clause was on the back of the piece of paper that she signed and she never saw it. She further claimed that the arbitration clause required each party to bear their own costs and attorneys’ fees, which made the cost of arbitration unconscionably prohibitive for her.
