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 contract or the relationships which result from this contract’ ” (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting arbitration clause)
How later courts described this case
- 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 contract or the relationships which result from this contract’ ” (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting arbitration clause)
- 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 issues because they turn on “contract interpretation and arbitration procedures”
- 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 this contract” would be “resolved by binding arbitration”
- 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 flawed on its own terms.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by JetBlue Airways Corp. v. Stephenson, 88 A.D.3d 567 (2011)
The Supreme Court, in discussing the propriety of the arbitrators’ having considered the issue in the first place, called into question the extent to which both parties, in maintaining that the question was for the arbitrators, should rely on Bazzle.
Questioned by Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC v. Suppa, 91 F. Supp. 3d 853 (2015)
Then, taking note of the plurality opinion in Bazzle, it observed that “[subsequent Supreme Court decisions '... cast doubt on the Bazzle plurality’s decision.
Questioned by Henderson v. U.S Patent Commission, Ltd., 188 F. Supp. 3d 798 (2016)
068 n. 2 (“Stolt-Nielsen made clear that this Court has not yet decided whether the availability of class arbitration is. a question of arbitrability.”); Dell Webb Cmtys., Inc. v. Carlson, 817 F.3d 867, 877 (4th Cir.2016) (characterizing Bazzle.as a “thin reed” and declining to rely on it); Opalinski v. Robert Half Int’l Inc., 761 F.3d 326, 331 (3d Cir.2014) (“Subsequent Supreme Court decisions ... cast doubt on the…
Distinguished
Distinguished by In Re John M. O'Quinn, P.C., 155 S.W.3d 195 (2003)
539 U.S. 444, 123 S.Ct. 2402, 156 L.Ed.2d 414 (2003) is inapplicable here.
The opinion
Justice Thomas,
dissenting.
I continue to believe that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U. S. C. § 1 et seq., does not apply to proceedings in state courts. Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 285-297 (1995) (Thomas, J., dissenting). See also Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto, 517 U. S. 681, 689 (1996) (Thomas, J., dissenting). For that reason, the FAA cannot be a ground for pre-empting a state court’s interpretation of a private arbitration agreement. Accordingly, I would leave undisturbed the judgment of the Supreme Court of South Carolina.