Allowing one party to an arbitration agreement—but not the other—to recover attorney fees for a breach of contract doesn’t make an arbitration agreement per se unconscionable, the Texas Supreme Court has held.
“Parties are generally free to contract for attorney fees as they see fit,” wrote Justice John Devine for a unanimous court. “Thus, a contract that expressly provides for one party’s attorney fees, but not another’s, is not unconscionable per se. Although perhaps relevant to a broader inquiry into contractual oppression or an imbalance in bargaining power, the attorney fee provision here is not, standing alone, decisive proof of an unconscionable bargain.”
