Illinois Farmers Insurance Co. V. Glass Service Co‪.‬

Glass Service Company and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Auto Glass Service Center (collectively Glass Service), appeal from a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision requiring them to separately arbitrate over 5,700 individual claims of alleged underpayment by Illinois Farmers Insurance Company and Mid-Century Insurance Company (collectively Farmers). Glass Service asserts that Farmers underpaid it for glass work that it performed for Farmers' insureds. The alleged underpayments collectively total more than $1,000,000. The district court concluded that a mandatory arbitration clause in Farmers' insurance policy and Minnesota's No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act (No-Fault Act), Minn. Stat. §§ 65B.41-65B.71 (2002), require Glass Service to separately arbitrate each claim of alleged underpayment. The court also ordered the parties to arbitrate each underpayment claim before the same arbitration panel. The court of appeals agreed in part, but held that the parties were required to arbitrate each of the more than 5,700 alleged underpayments before separate arbitration panels. Ill. Farmers Ins. Co. v. Glass Service Co., Inc., 669 N.W.2d 420, 428 (Minn. App. 2003). We affirm in part, holding that arbitration is required, but we remand to the district court to determine whether some or all of these claims may be consolidated.