National Equipment Rental, Ltd. v. H. Walter Hendrix, III and Jean K. Hendrix

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding the jury waiver invalid where waiver was inconspicuous, appeared to be non-negotiable, and there was unequal bargaining power
• stating that the right to a jury trial “can only be relinquished knowingly and intentionally”
• finding that a contractual waiver of the right to a jury trial was not knowing and voluntary because, inter alia, “[t]he waiver clause was set deeply and inconspicuously in the contract”
• refusing to enforce a jury waiver because it appeared in the middle of the contract, in fine print, and there was no showing that the waiving party had any choice in the waiver
• finding a lack of negotiability because the party seeking to enforce it “dissuaded” the other party from consulting an attorney at the time that he signed it
• declining to enforce a jury waiver in part because a party “did not have any choice but to accept” the contract such that there was “gross inequality in bargaining power”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).