No. 25-706

Sergei Vinkov v. Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company

Lower Court: California
Docketed: 2025-12-18
Status: Pending
Type: Paid
Tags: arbitration-rights civil-procedure contract-law equitable-estoppel federal-arbitration-act preclusion-doctrine
Key Terms:
Arbitration FirstAmendment
Latest Conference: 2026-02-20
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether the doctrine of preclusion overrides equitable estoppel in enforcing arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.

Question Presented (from Petition)

After this Court refused to intervene and review the jurisdictional defects in the lower court's judgment in favor of Respondent and denial of constitutional protection for an alien (See Docket in Case No. 22-1032, 2022 October Session), Petitioner compelled Respondent in state court to arbitrate issues related to breach of the arbitration agreement, bad faith, consumer protection laws, and other tortious and contractual claims. The state trial court judge and state appellate justices denied enforcement of Petitioner's statutory right to arbitration against Respondent, citing issue preclusion and disregarding equitable estoppel, as well as constitutional and statutory mandates ("It is unfair for a signatory to an [arbitration] agreement to avoid arbitration by suing nonsignatories for claims that are based on the same facts and are inherently inseparable from arbitrable claims deriving from the agreement," (Gonzalez v. Nowhere Beverly Hills LLC (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 111, slip op. at 23). A litigant who was not a party to the arbitration agreement may nonetheless invoke its enforcement under state contract law (Arthur Andersen LLP v. Carlisle, 556 U.S. 624 (2009)). These procedural loopholes and the outcomes of the

Docket Entries

2026-02-04
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/20/2026.
2025-09-13
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due January 20, 2026)
2025-06-13
Application (24A1230) granted by Justice Kagan extending the time to file until September 15, 2025.
2025-06-03
Application (24A1230) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from August 12, 2025 to September 15, 2025, submitted to Justice Kagan.

Attorneys

Sergei Vinkov
Sergei Vinkov — Petitioner
Sergei Vinkov — Petitioner