William Attix v. Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC, No. 20-13575 (11th Cir. 2022)
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Plaintiff sued his mortgage service asserting claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Florida law. Plaintiff’s claims arose from a mortgage payment he made to Defendant using an automated pay-by-phone service provided by a third-party payment service provider. Before making his mortgage payment, Plaintiff agreed to be bound by the service’s terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions provided that “any dispute arising from” Plaintiff’s use of the service “shall be” arbitrated. They also provided that an “arbitrator shall also decide what is subject to arbitration unless prohibited by law,” and incorporated by reference an arbitration provision of the American Arbitration Association.
The district court denied Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and ruled that the Dodd-Frank Act prohibited enforcement of the parties’ arbitration agreement.
The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s ruling with instructions to compel arbitration. The court explained that in the terms and conditions governing Plaintiff’s use of the service, Plaintiff and Defendant clearly and unmistakably agreed that an arbitrator would decide all threshold questions about the arbitrability of Plaintiff’s claims, including whether their arbitration agreement is enforceable. Plaintiff has not specifically challenged the enforceability of the parties’ agreement to arbitrate threshold questions about the arbitrability of his claims. Plaintiff’s Dodd-Frank Act challenge related only to the enforceability of the parties’ separate agreement to arbitrate the merits of his claims, and the parties have agreed to submit questions about the enforceability of that agreement to an arbitrator.
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