## Facts

- Security Life, a Minnesota insurer, entered a 1992 reinsurance treaty with a pool of seven insurers, including Transamerica, with Duncanson & Holt (D&H) serving as reinsurers’ manager.
- The treaty required reinsurers to assume 85% of risks, premiums, loss adjustment expenses, and certain extra-contractual liabilities, subject to a “counsel and concur” requirement.
- After Security Life lost an approximately $14 million judgment in Georgia litigation, D&H and reinsurers refused to pay their share, asserting Security Life failed to satisfy “counsel and concur.”
- Security Life and D&H arbitrated under a broad clause covering disputes about contract interpretation and rights concerning covered transactions.
- During arbitration, the panel subpoenaed nonparty Transamerica (in California) to (a) produce documents for inspection before the hearing and (b) provide an employee for a prehearing deposition.
- Transamerica refused, arguing the panel lacked authority under FAA § 7 for prehearing discovery from a nonparty and asserting procedural defects, including Rule 45 territorial limits.
- Security Life sought an order in the District of Minnesota to compel compliance; the district court directed Security Life’s counsel to issue a subpoena using the process of a federal court in California.
- While the appeal was pending, Transamerica produced the deposition witness, mooting that portion; the dispute continued over prehearing document production.

## Issues

1. Whether FAA § 7 authorizes arbitrators to compel a nonparty to produce documents for prehearing discovery outside the arbitrators’ presence.
2. Whether a federal court enforcing an arbitral subpoena against a nonparty must apply Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, including the 100-mile territorial limit.
3. Whether the district court could enforce the arbitral subpoena by directing counsel to issue subpoena process on behalf of another district.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit dismissed as moot the challenge concerning the prehearing deposition because Transamerica had complied.
- The court held that FAA § 7 does not permit arbitrators to compel nonparties to produce documents for prehearing discovery outside a hearing before the arbitrators.
- The court recognized that § 7 allows arbitrators to summon a nonparty to appear before the arbitrators and, in a proper case, to bring documents to that appearance.
- The court concluded that any judicial enforcement of arbitral subpoenas must comply with Rule 45’s territorial and procedural constraints and rejected the district court’s cross-district “shortcut” to subpoena issuance.
- The disposition affirmed in part and dismissed in part consistent with these holdings.

## Legal Principles

- FAA § 7 authorizes arbitrators to summon any person to attend before them as a witness and, when appropriate, to bring documents material as evidence at that appearance.
- FAA § 7 does not authorize arbitrators to compel nonparties to produce documents for prehearing discovery at a location and time not connected to an appearance before the arbitrators.
- Because arbitration is consensual, compulsory discovery tools against nonparties are limited to what the FAA expressly permits.
- When a federal court is asked to enforce an arbitral subpoena, enforcement is subject to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, including the 100-mile limit on the place of compliance.
- A district court may not expand arbitral subpoena reach or avoid Rule 45’s territorial limits by directing issuance of subpoena process as if from another federal district.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit limited nonparty arbitral subpoenas under FAA § 7 to witness attendance before arbitrators with documents at that appearance, rejected prehearing document discovery from nonparties, and required federal-court enforcement to comply with Rule 45’s territorial and procedural requirements.


Sec. Life Ins. Co. of Am. v. Duncanson & Holt, Inc., 228 F.3d 865 (8th Cir. 2000)