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Engalla's Legacy to Arbitration: Why Independent Administration Is Important - Chapter 13 - AAA Handbook on Commercial Arbitration - 2nd Edition

Author(s): 
Edward A. Dauer
Page Count: 
11 pages
Media Description: 
PDF from "AAA Handbook on Commercial Arbitration - 2nd Edition"
Published: 
September, 2010
Jurisdictions: 
United States
Practice Areas: 
Selection by Arbitral Institution,
Responsibility of Arbitrators,
Independence and Impartiality,
Commercial Disputes,
AAA
Author Detail: 

Edward A. Dauer is Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Denver. He is an active arbitrator and a student of arbitration with a particular emphasis on health care disputes. Dauer earned an A.B. from Brown University, a cum laude LL.B. from Yale Law School and an MPH form Harvard School of Public Health. His writings include HEALTH CARE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (National Association of Corporate Directors 2003) (with co-authors), Judicial Policing of Consumer Arbitration, 1 PEPPERDINE J. DISP. RES. (2000) and Arbitration Wins; Arbitration Lose, 10 WORLD ARBITRATION & MEDIATION REPORT (1999). The author can be reached at edauer@law.du.edu.

 

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I. Introduction to Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc. 

It was like watching a collision in the vacuum of outer space: Something big happened, but it didn’t make a sound. On June 30, 1997 the California Supreme Court issued its opinion in Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc.,1 one of the most closely watched statecourt consumer arbitration cases in recent years. The opinion by Justice Mosk reversed the holding of the California Court of Appeals and remanded the case back to the trial court, thereby (for all practical purposes) reinstating the trial court’s judgment that the survivors of Wilfredo Engalla need not arbitrate their medical malpractice claim against Kaiser Permanente.

Yet the opinion, a seeming victory for an individual alleging injury from a faulty, self-administered arbitration against a more powerful adversary, makes no substantial change in the role of the courts in consumer arbitrations. That fact, however, does not make the opinion uninteresting. To the contrary, the court's careful hewing to the existing lines adds color to the chiaroscuro of self-administered arbitration.