Ford

Plaintiff Benson Ford, Jr. (Ford) filed suit against his former psychotherapist, Louis Fuentes (Fuentes); his former bookkeeper and business manager, Lydia Szabo (Szabo); Shearson Lehman American Express, Inc. (Shearson), a securities broker and investment adviser; and others. Ford seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the defendants for, among other things, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, and civil conspiracy to commit fraud.

This appeal concerns whether Ford may avoid arbitration of his disputes with Shearson when arbitration is called for by the terms of two customer brokerage agreements (agreement(s)) he apparently executed with Shear-son’s predecessors.

We conclude that Ford’s complaint adequately pleads that the agreements (1) were unenforceable under tort principles because the fraud practiced on him by the defendants so permeated the agreements that they were vitiated; and (2) were void under contract law principles because he never voluntarily assented to the agreements because he was dominated and controlled by Fuentes, Szabo and others. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Shearson’s motion to compel arbitration and for a stay of…