Lenox MacLaren Surgical Corp. v. Medtronic, Inc.

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In this interlocutory appeal, Defendants Medtronic, Inc. (and several of its subsidiaries) appealed a district court's denial of their motion to compel Plaintiff Lenox MacLaren Surgical Corporation (LM) to arbitrate its antitrust claims against them even though none of the Defendants signed the distribution and licensing agreement containing the arbitration provision. Upon review of the district court record, the Tenth Circuit concluded that even if LM's antitrust claims either expressly or implicitly alleged collusion between subsidiary Medatronic Danek USA and one or more of the other Medtronic subsidiaries, they were not "intimately founded in or intertwined with" the obligations in the agreement at issue in this case. "In sum, equity does not demand that LM be compelled to arbitrate its antitrust claims against the Medtronic Defendants. The district court therefore did not err in denying the Medtronic Defendants’ motion to compel arbitration."