Bhatia v. Johnston

• Decision Date: 04 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1634,86-1634
• Citation: 818 F.2d 418
• Parties: K.N. BHATIA, M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. S. Erik JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 418

818 F.2d 418

56 USLW 2012

K.N. BHATIA, M.D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. S. Erik JOHNSTON, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 86-1634.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

June 4, 1987.

William D. Kuhlmann, Hershel R. Payne, Bishop, Payne, Lamsens & Brown, Fort Worth, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.

Michael J. Stewart, Janie L. Frank, Shannon, Gracey, Ratliff & Miller, Fort Worth, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before THORNBERRY, REAVLEY, and POLITZ, Circuit Judges.

POLITZ, Circuit Judge:

This appeal poses the sole inquiry whether the district court properly ordered the arbitration of the state law claims advanced by K.N. Bhatia in his dispute with defendants-appellees. Agreeing with that order, we affirm.

Background

In December 1980, Bhatia opened two margin accounts, one individually and one as trustee, with Rotan Mosle, Inc., a brokerage firm. S. Erik Johnston, a co-defendant, was Bhatia's accountant and investment advisor as well as the Rotan Mosle broker-in-charge of the two accounts. For each account, Bhatia signed a Margin Agreement prepared by Rotan Mosle. Each agreement contained a provision for optional arbitration of disputes. ¹

Eighteen months later, Johnston became a broker with Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. Bhatia transferred his accounts and opened a third with Dean Witter. In doing so Bhatia executed three Customer's Agreements prepared by Dean Witter. Johnston represented that those agreements were the same as the Rotan Mosle agreements. Bhatia did not read the new agreements, either before or after signing them. If he had, he would have seen that the arbitration clause in the Dean Witter agreements was mandatory, ² and that several other provisions significantly differed. ³

In 1982 and 1983 Bhatia's accounts lost money. In January 1984 he filed suit against Johnston, John Turbeville, another Dean Witter employee, and Dean Witter, invoking the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. Secs. 78a et seq., the Investment Advisors Act of 1940, 15 U.S.C. Secs. 80b-6, 80b-15, and various state and common-law causes of action. The defendants sought arbitration of all non-federal causes of action and a concomitant stay pending that arbitration. In August 1984, applying then-controlling circuit precedent, see, e.g., Miley v. Oppenheimer & Co., 637 F.2d 318 (5th Cir.1981), the district court denied the motion, finding that the arbitrable and non-arbitrable claims arose out of the same transaction and were so intertwined as to warrant the denial of arbitration and trial of all claims in federal court.

In March of 1985, the United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U.S. 213, 105 S.Ct. 1238, 84 L.Ed.2d 158 (1985), expressly disapproving this circuit's doctrine of intertwining, and held that where a valid arbitration agreement exists, a district court must compel arbitration despite intertwining with non-arbitrable claims. The defendants renewed their motion for arbitration of the pendent claims, and also sought arbitration of the claims under the Exchange Act. The district court followed the teachings of Byrd and ordered arbitration of the pendent state claims, but, citing Smoky Greenhaw Cotton Co. v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 785 F.2d 1274 (5th Cir.1986), declined to compel arbitration of the claims made pursuant to the Exchange Act.

In ordering arbitration of the pendent claims, the district court found that in the affidavits filed in opposition to the motion for arbitration, Bhatia did not contend that the arbitration clause was induced by fraud. Bhatia did not read the agreements and was unaware of the arbitration clause until advised by his attorney after the instant suit was filed. Noting that Texas law charges a party with reading that which he signs, Plains Cotton Cooperative Association v. Wolf, 553 S.W.2d 800 (Tex.Civ.App.1977, writ ref'd n.r.e.), the district court concluded that absent a showing of fraud, Bhatia could not resist enforcement of the arbitration clause. Bhatia appeals the arbitration and stay order. We have appellate jurisdiction of an order staying an action pending arbitration. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(a)(1); Commerce Park at DFW Freeport v. Mardian Construction Co., 729 F.2d 334 (5th Cir.1984).

Analysis

The Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Secs. 1-14, governs arbitration agreements made in contracts involving commerce. Under Sec. 2 of the Act, a written provision in a contract

to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract ... shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.

Section 3 of the Act permits the court to stay proceedings pending arbitration if the court is "satisfied that the issue involved ... is referable to arbitration" under an arbitration agreement. Under Sec. 4 if a party to an agreement refuses to arbitrate, the opposing party may bring an action to compel arbitration, and after hearing the parties the court "being satisfied that the making of the agreement for arbitration or the failure to comply therewith is not in issue," shall direct the parties to arbitrate. Further, Sec. 4 declares that "[i]f the making of the arbitration agreement or the failure ... to perform the same be in issue, the court shall proceed summarily to the trial thereof."

The Arbitration Act clearly established a federal policy in favor of arbitration, and sought to ameliorate perceived judicial hostility to arbitration. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U.S. 614, 105 S.Ct. 3346, 87 L.Ed.2d 444 (1985); Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. v. Byrd. By its express terms the Arbitration Act dispels any suggestion that the district courts are vested with discretion to order arbitration for it "mandates that district courts shall direct the parties to proceed to arbitration on issues as to which an arbitration agreement has been signed." Byrd, 470 U.S. at 218, 105 S.Ct. at 1241, 84 L.Ed.2d at 163 (emphasis in original).

The court must first determine whether the parties agreed to arbitrate the dispute. Mitsubishi. To do so, the court must look to the body of federal arbitration law. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 103 S.Ct. 927, 74 L.Ed.2d 765 (1983), requires that the question of arbitrability be addressed with a "healthy regard for the federal policy favoring arbitration," with doubts regarding the scope of the agreement resolved in favor of arbitration. 460 U.S. at 24-25, 103 S.Ct. at 941, 74 L.Ed.2d at 785. At the same time, the court should remain keenly attuned to well-grounded claims that "the agreement to arbitrate resulted from the sort of fraud or overwhelming economic power that would provide grounds 'for the revocation of any contract.' " Id. (quoting 9 U.S.C. Sec. 2).

Bhatia's contentions inform our resolution of this appeal. If he is contending that Johnston's alleged misrepresentations fraudulently induced him to enter into the contracts with Dean Witter, that issue is arbitrable. If he is claiming, on the other hand, that the fraudulent inducement focused specifically on the arbitration provision, the court may first address the issue. In this regard, the Supreme Court's holding in Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 395, 403-04, 87 S.Ct. 1801, 1805-06, 18 L.Ed.2d 1270, 1277 (1967), is the dispositive ruling. Therein the Court declared:

[I]f the claim is fraud in the inducement of the arbitration clause itself--an issue which goes to the "making" of the agreement to arbitrate--the federal court may proceed to adjudicate it. But the statutory language [of the Arbitration Act] does not permit the federal court to consider claims of fraud in the inducement of the contract generally.

In accordance with the specific teachings of Prima Paint, we must determine whether Bhatia's complaint is directed at the entire contract or only the arbitration clause.

The record reflects that Bhatia charged that the misrepresentations tainted his actions with respect to the entire contract and not just the arbitration clause. This appears from his affidavits, the treatment he accorded the execution of the instruments, and the memorandum filed herein. Bhatia filed two affidavits in opposition to the motion for arbitration. In the first affidavit he contended that the agreements were not explained to him and that he had no bargaining opportunity as...