Home Depot Loses Bid to Arbitrate Claims by Citibank Cardholder

Home Depot lost its bid to overturn a North Carolina Superior Court decision denying its effort to arbitrate would-be class action claims over a Home Depot branded Citibank credit card.

The agreement between plaintiff George W. Jackson and Home Depot doesn’t contain an arbitration clause, and the home improvement retailer isn’t entitled to enforce an arbitration clause contained in Jackson’s Citibank card agreement, the Court of Appeals of North Carolina said Monday. That’s true whether the argument is analyzed as a third-party beneficiary or under the doctrine of equitable estoppel, it said.

Adopting the reasoning articulated in a federal court ...