# Green Tree Financial Corp. v. Bazzle

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 23, 2003 · 539 U.S. 444

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434500

## Case

- **Full name:** GREEN TREE FINANCIAL CORP., Nka CONSECO FINANCE CORP. v. BAZZLE Et Al., in a Representative Capacity on Behalf of a Class and for All Others Similarly Situated, Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 23, 2003
- **Citations:** 539 U.S. 444; 16 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 412; 71 U.S.L.W. 4538; 91 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1832; 2003 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5375; 123 S. Ct. 2402; 156 L. Ed. 2d 414; 2003 U.S. LEXIS 4798
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Stevens
- **Judges:** Breyer, Scalia, Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas
- **Cited by:** 483 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by JetBlue Airways Corp. v. Stephenson, 88 A.D.3d 567 (2011).
- Negative treatments: 3
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434500

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that under the parties’ agreement, “the question — whether the agreement forbids class arbitration — is for the arbitrator to decide [because] [t]he parties agreed to submit to the arbitrator ‘[a]ll disputes, claims, or controversies arising from or relating to this…
- reasoning that such procedural issues are not among the “limited” types of questions— such as “whether the parties have a valid arbitration agreement at all” — generally intended for judicial resolution, and that “[ajrbitrators are well situated to answer” such procedural issu…
- finding that the parties’ dispute about what the arbitration agreement meant fell within the broad scope indicated by the language in the agreement that “[a]ll disputes, claims, or controversies arising from or relating to this contract or the relationships which result from t…
- stating that “[t]he South Carolina Supreme Court’s determination, that the contracts are silent in respect to class arbitration raises a preliminary question.... And we must deal with that argument at the outset, for if it is right, then the South Carolina court’s holding is f…
- holding that in the absence of clear and unmistakable evidence to the contrary, “courts assume that the parties intended courts, not arbitrators, to decide ... certain gateway matters, such as whether [an arbitration agreement] applies to a certain type of controversy”

## Opinion text

Justice Stevens,
concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part.
The parties agreed that South Carolina law would govern their arbitration agreement. The Supreme Court of South Carolina has held as a matter of state law that class-action arbitrations are permissible if not prohibited by the applicable arbitration agreement, and that the agreement between these parties is silent on the issue. 351 S. C. 244, 262-266, 569 S. E. 2d 349, 359-360 (2002). There is nothing in the Federal Arbitration Act that precludes either of these deter *455 minations by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. See Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468, 475-476 (1989).
Arguably the interpretation of the parties’ agreement should have been made in the first instance by the arbitrator, rather than the court. See Howsam v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 537 U. S. 79 (2002). Because the decision to conduct a class-action arbitration was correct as a matter of law, and because petitioner has merely challenged the merits of that decision without claiming that it was made by the wrong decisionmaker, there is no need to remand the case to correct that possible error.
Accordingly, I would simply affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Were I to adhere to my preferred disposition of the case, however, there would be no controlling judgment of the Court. In order to avoid that outcome, and because Justice Breyer’s opinion expresses a view of the case close to my own, I concur in the judgment. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 134 (1945) (Rutledge, J., concurring in result).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9434500. Public record. Not legal advice.