Jennings v. Ed. Napleton Elmhurst Imps. Inc.

This opinion supports compelling arbitration only within a narrow evidentiary and procedural envelope. The court’s reasoning assumes an undisputed record showing that the plaintiff’s primary duties were sales-focused, with transportation-related activities (deliveries, dealer trades, loading/unloading) treated as infrequent and incidental, and it places the burden on the opponent of arbitration to supply frequency evidence at the pre-discovery motion-to-compel stage reviewed under a summary-judgment standard. The opinion also treats challenges to agreement formation based solely on lack of recollection or hypothetical unwillingness as insufficient to create a triable issue, while leaving open stronger, affirmative challenges. Although the court addresses FAA §1, IWTA preemption, formation, scope, and remedy through multiple independent grounds, reliance on this case becomes unsafe if transportation duties are factually contested, discovery alters the evidentiary record, or formation challenges rest on direct denial or proof rather than inference.