In Knight v. Vivint Solar Dev., LLC, the Appellate Division was tasked with deciding whether the courts or an arbitrator should decide the plaintiff’s claim that she never saw an arbitration agreement, which she allegedly agreed to. That question turned on the Court’s interpretation of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision in Goffe v. Foulke Mgmt. Corp., 238 N.J. 191 (2019). The Appellate Division held that the plaintiff here was distinguishable from the plaintiffs in Goffe because she claimed that she never saw the arbitration agreement and certainly never agreed to it. And some discovery cast doubts on the business practices of the defendant, a solar-power company. The Appellate Division held that it was for the courts to decide this threshold issue. Though not cited by the Appellate Division, this case appears to be in harmony with the 3rd Circuit’s recent ruling in MZM Constr. Co. v. NJ Bldg. Laborers Statewide Benefit Funds.
