D & D Carpentry, Inc. v. U.S. Bancorp

¶ 1. We deem the controlling issue in this case to be whether an arbitration order, entered by the trial court after the attorneys consented to arbitration in open court, is valid when one of those attorneys allegedly entered into the agreement without his client's consent. Robin Edler, upon learning that her attorney submitted her case to binding arbitration less than a month before the scheduled jury trial, retained new counsel and filed a motion for reconsideration protesting the court's arbitration order. The general rule is that an attorney has no authority to settle his or her client's…