Williams v. Cashcall, Inc.

92 F. Supp. 3d 847, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32620, 2015 WL 1219605
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedMarch 17, 2015
DocketCase No. 14-CV-903
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 92 F. Supp. 3d 847 (Williams v. Cashcall, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Williams v. Cashcall, Inc., 92 F. Supp. 3d 847, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32620, 2015 WL 1219605 (E.D. Wis. 2015).

Opinion

[849]*849DECISION AND ORDER

WILLIAM E. DUFFIN, United States Magistrate Judge.

Western Sky Financial, LLC is a lender that offers high interest loans to consumers. (ECF No. 12-1 at 2.) It is located on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Nation (the Tribe) Reservation in South Dakota and is wholly owned by Tribal member Martin Webb. (ECF No. 12-1 at 2.) Plaintiffs Lisa Walker and Eric Williams are Wisconsin residents who applied for and received consumer loans from Western Sky. (ECF No. 121 at 2, 13.) In November 2011, Ms. Walker borrowed $2,525 at an interest rate of 139. 12%; in February 2012, Mr. Williams borrowed $1,000 at an interest rate of 233.91%. (ECF No. 12-1 at 2, 13.) After the funds were advanced to plaintiffs, their loans were sold to WS Funding, LLC and serviced by Defendant CashCall, Inc., a California corporation. (ECF No. 12-1 at 3.)

Plaintiffs brought a class action suit against CashCall in Wisconsin circuit court claiming that CashCall violated Wisconsin’s usury law (Wis.Stat. § 138.09) by charging interest rates above 18 percent without first obtaining a license from the Wisconsin Division of Banking. (ECF No. 1-1 at 1-3.) As a result, plaintiffs allege that, pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 425.305, they are not obligated to repay their loans. (ECF No. 1-1 at 3.) CashCall removed the matter to federal court. (ECF No. 1.) In accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) and Fed.R.Civ.P. 73(b) the parties all consented to the full jurisdiction of a magistrate judge. (ECF Nos. 6, 8.) Now pending before this court is CashCall’s motion to dismiss, which pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(d) the court has converted to a motion for summary judgment; alternatively, CashCall moves the court to compel arbitration.

CashCall’s brief in support of its motion includes two arguments previously rejected by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Jackson v. Payday Financial, LLC, 764 F.3d 765 (2014). Specifically, it argues that the forum selection clause found in plaintiffs’ loan agreements mandates that any in-court litigation occur in the courts of the Tribe, and that the tribal exhaustion doctrine requires that plaintiffs, whose claims implicate the jurisdiction of a federally recognized Indian tribe, must first bring suit in Tribal court before they may later challenge the scope of Tribal jurisdiction in federal court. CashCall states that it includes those arguments “for preservation only.” (ECF No. 12 at 18-23.) Consequently, the court will not address those arguments further.

I. MOTION TO COMPEL ARBITRATION

A. Law Applicable to Determining the Enforceability of the Arbitration Clauses

The court must first determine what law governs the determination of the enforceability of the arbitration clauses. Federal jurisdiction over this dispute exists pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act, which requires minimal diversity of citizenship of the parties. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(A). When federal courts obtain jurisdiction through diversity of citizenship, they ordinarily will apply “the substantive law of the state in which the district court sits, including choice of law rules.” Wachovia Sec. v. Banco Panamericano, Inc., 674 F.3d 743, 751 (7th Cir.2012) (internal citations omitted).

However, an arbitration clause is a type of forum selection clause. Sherwood v. Marquette Transp. Co., 587 F.3d 841, 844 (7th Cir.2009). To determine the validity of a forum selection clause, the law designated in the contract’s choice of law clause is used. Jackson, 764 F.3d at 774-75 (citing Abbott Laboratories v. Takeda [850]*850Pharmaceutical Co., 476 F.3d 421 (7th Cir.2007)). Here, the loan agreements each contain a choice of law provision stating that “[t]his Loan Agreement is subject solely to the- exclusive laws and jurisdiction of the [Tribe], Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.” (ECF No. 12-1 at 6,13.) However, as the defendants conceded in Jackson, 764 F.3d at 775, there does not appear to be any Tribal law addressing the enforceability of forum selection clauses. The parties here have not directed this court to the existence of any such Tribal law. According to the defendants in Jackson, when Cheyenne River Indian Tribal law is lacking, Tribal courts will borrow from federal law. Id. at 776. Here, the parties appear to concede that this is correct; both CashCall and plaintiffs rely on federal law in discussing the enforceability of the arbitration clauses in the loan agreements. Therefore, the court will apply federal law in determining the enforceability of the arbitration clauses.

B. Arbitrability Determination

As a threshold matter, CashCall contends that the issue of whether Mr. Williams’s arbitration clause is enforceable is to be resolved by the arbitrator, not this court,1 relying upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U.S. 63, 70-71, 130 S.Ct. 2772, 177 L.Ed.2d 403 (2010). In Rent-A-Center, in a section of the contract entitled “Arbitration Procedures,” the parties agreed that “[t]he Arbitrator ... shall have exclusive authority to resolve any dispute relating to the interpretation, applicability, enforceability or formation of this Agreement including, but not limited to any claim that all or any part of this Agreement is void or voidable.” Id. at 66, 130 S.Ct. 2772. Because the plaintiff there did not challenge the validity of the so-called “delegation provision” specifically, the Court held that it was valid, leaving any challenge to the validity of the arbitration agreement as a whole for the arbitrator. 561 U.S. at 71-72, 130 S.Ct. 2772.

Mr. Williams’s loan agreement does not contain a “delegation provision” similar to that in Rent-A-Center. Rather, in identifying the types of disputes that are to be resolved by arbitration, a “Dispute” is defined to include, “by way of example and without limitation, ... any issue concerning the validity, enforceability, or scope of this loan or the Arbitration agreement.” (ECF No. 12-1 at 9.) CashCall argues that this language evidences the parties’ agreement that issues of arbitrability are reserved exclusively for the arbitrator. (ECF No. 12 at 10.)

Challenges to the validity of arbitration agreements can be divided into two types. One type challenges specifically the agreement to arbitrate; the other challenges the contract as a whole. Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc. v. Cardegna, 546 U.S. 440, 444, 126 S.Ct. 1204, 163 L.Ed.2d 1038 (2006).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
92 F. Supp. 3d 847, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32620, 2015 WL 1219605, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/williams-v-cashcall-inc-wied-2015.