USA-West Virginia’s Highest Court clarifies a party’s evidentiary burden to establish prima facie the existence of a valid arbitration agreement under the Federal Arbitration Act (Ford Motor Credit Co v Miller)

Article summary

Arbitration analysis: Plaintiff Ford Credit Company (FCC) successfully appealed a West Virginia Circuit Court’s decision denying its motion to compel arbitration under a retail installment contract for an automobile purchase. Under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and West Virginia decisions, the party seeking to compel arbitration must first establish that the agreement to arbitrate exists between the parties through the submission of prima facie evidence of the agreement. The Supreme Court found that the lower court erred in dismissing FCC’s motion for failure to conclusively prove through admissible testimony or other sworn evidence that a valid arbitration agreement existed between the two parties. The concurring decision of Justice Hutchinson specifically noted that, in many cases, a printed copy of a contract is sufficient to prove the prima facie existence of a mutual agreement, for a simple reason: the other side does...