ARIZONA ATTORNEY DECEMBER 2012
30 www.azbar.org/AZAttorney
Arizona’s Curious
Contribution to the Law
of Contractual Arbitration
BY BARRY D. HALPERN & SARA J. AGNE
O
ctober 2012 marked the 20th anniversary of the Arizona
Supreme Court’s opinion in Broemmer v. Abortion Services of
Phoenix, Ltd. In the two decades since Broemmer was decid-
ed, it has been featured in nearly a dozen legal textbooks for
contracts and arbitration courses. As one scholar notes,
Broemmer is historic in that it marked the first time the Arizona Supreme
Court applied the “reasonable expectations” doctrine of Section 211(3) of
the Restatement (Second) of Contracts to a contract that was not an insur-
ance policy. Broemmer is part of a lineage of decisions that made Arizona
a legal laboratory for the court-led implementation of Section 211(3).
Despite that lineage, the authors respectfully argue that the case
undermined the appropriate use of mediation and furthered Arizona’s
retreat from personal responsibility in contract law.
Broemmer v. Abortion Services of Phoenix, Ltd.
Law’s Attic sheds light on
remarkable historical events
whose anniversary is upon us.
This month our authors exam-
ine a noteworthy case two
decades old this year.
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YURI ARCURS © SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
