## Facts

- Commercial Solvents Corp. and Louisiana Liquid Fertilizer Co., Inc. entered a supply contract containing an arbitration clause requiring arbitration under American Arbitration Association (AAA) rules.
- A dispute arose, and Commercial Solvents served a demand for arbitration under the AAA rules.
- Louisiana Liquid filed an answer in the arbitration and sought to take depositions of five Commercial Solvents employees located in Louisiana.
- Louisiana Liquid obtained an ex parte federal court order authorizing the depositions and served deposition notices invoking the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP).
- Commercial Solvents moved in the Southern District of New York to vacate the ex parte order and set aside the deposition notices.
- The court addressed whether FRCP depositions could be compelled for use in a pending private arbitration governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

## Issues

1. Whether Rule 81(a)(3) permits a party to a private FAA arbitration to compel pre-hearing depositions under the FRCP when the FAA does not expressly provide for such discovery.
2. Whether federal courts have authority to order party-initiated deposition discovery solely to prepare for arbitration, beyond the FAA’s witness-and-document mechanism.

## Decision

- The court granted Commercial Solvents’ motion.
- The court vacated the ex parte order authorizing depositions and set aside the deposition notices.
- The court held that FRCP deposition procedures are not available merely because the arbitration is connected to a dispute that could have been litigated in federal court.
- The court concluded that Rule 81(a)(3) does not authorize parties to compel depositions for use in private arbitration proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- The FAA provides a limited statutory mechanism for evidentiary compulsion through arbitrators, including subpoenas for witnesses and documents under 9 U.S.C. § 7, with judicial enforcement as needed.
- Rule 81(a)(3) applies the FRCP to court proceedings authorized by the FAA, but it does not expand arbitral procedure or create independent discovery powers for use in arbitration.
- Federal courts lack general supervisory authority to impose litigation-style discovery in private arbitration absent explicit statutory authorization or arbitral direction within the FAA’s framework.
- Agreements to arbitrate under specified rules (including AAA rules) reflect a choice of a nonjudicial process in which procedural control is primarily assigned to the arbitrators and the parties’ contract, subject to the FAA’s limited court role.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a party may not use the FRCP, via Rule 81(a)(3), to compel pre-hearing depositions solely for use in a private arbitration under the FAA; discovery of that kind is not available absent statutory authority and must proceed, if at all, through the arbitrators’ FAA-based subpoena power and the parties’ agreed arbitral procedures.


Commercial Solvents Corp. v. Louisiana Liquid Fertilizer Co., 20 F.R.D. 359 (S.D.N.Y. 1957)