State Ex Rel. Richmond American Homes of West Virginia, Inc. v. Sanders

KETCHUM, Justice:

In this petition seeking a writ of prohibition, we are once again asked to wrestle with the arbitration bear. 1 The Federal Arbitration Act (“the FAA”) 2 indicates a congressional intent to protect arbitration agreements, and ensure that courts treat them like any other contract. But the FAA does not require courts to enforce an arbitration clause when the parties never reached a “meeting of the minds” about the clause. A court may submit to arbitration “only those disputes ... that the parties have agreed to submit.” 3

A federal district court claimed that arbitration clauses…