Civil Procedure – Arbitration

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure – Arbitration

It did not exceed the arbitrators’ authority to conclude that the WFDL was preempted by federal law.

“Renard brushes these concerns aside and contends that the arbitrators exceeded their power by failing to apply the WFDL to these facts. Given the clear noncompliance with the WFDL’s notice and cure provisions, Renard assumes that the panel must have agreed with Ameriprise that federal securities laws preempt his WFDL claims. Perhaps this is the best reading of the tea leaves. And perhaps Renard is right that this was an incorrect application of the law. But even he con-cedes that the arbitrators analyzed the WFDL, and that is enough to doom his claim in federal court. It is not manifest disregard of a law to consider that law and its relation to other laws and then conclude that the law does not apply in the specific factual situation at issue. This conclusion is straightforward here, given the fact that Ameriprise presented its preemption argument to the arbitrators. They did what the parties contracted for: they resolved the issue on the basis of the laws and arguments presented to them.”

Affirmed.

14-1730 Renard v. Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Stadtmueller, J., Wood, J.

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