Patricia Atalese v. U.S. Legal Services Group, L.P. (072314)

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that an arbitration clause need not identify \the specific constitutional or statutory right guaranteeing a citizen access to the courts that is waived by agreeing to arbitration\
• concluding that “the wording of the service agreement did not clearly and unambiguously signal to plaintiff that she was surrendering her right to pursue her statutory claims in court” (emphasis added)
• holding that “[a]n agreement to arbitrate, like any other contract, must be the product of mutual assent,” which requires “that the parties have an understanding of the terms to which they have agreed” (internal citations and quotations omitted)
• stating that contracts “will pass muster when phrased in plain language that is understandable to the reasonable [person]”
• explaining that valid contractual waiver provisions are “sufficiently clear to place a consumer on notice that he or she is waiving a constitutional or statutory right”
• holding the words of an arbitration agreement \must be clear and unambiguous that a [person] is choosing to arbitrate disputes rather than have them resolved in a court of law\

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).