Consumer Law

Supreme Court Decides Stolt-Neilsen: No Class Arbitration Where Clause is "Silent"

By Deepak Gupta

by Deepak Gupta

The opinions are here. The vote is 5-3. Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Justices Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas.  Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stevens and Breyer. Justice Sotomayor was recused.

The Court holds that imposing class arbitration on parties who have not agreed to authorize class arbitration is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act. The arbitration panel, in the Court's view, "exceeded its powers" under Section 10(a)(4) of the Act by imposing its own policy choice instead of identifying and applying a rule of decision derived from the FAA or from maritime or New York law.

The Court relies heavily on the basic principles that, under the FAA, arbitration ?is a matter of consent, not coercion,? and that arbitration agreements must be "enforced according to their terms." (quoting the Volt case).  t follows, the Court holds, that a party may not be compelled under the FAA to submit to class arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that the party agreed to do so. An implicit agreement to authorize class action arbitration is not a term that the arbitrator may infer solely from the fact of an agreement to arbitrate. The differences between simple bilateral and complex class action arbitration are too great for such a presumption.

We had filed a brief arguing that this case was not ripe for judicial review, both as a prudential matter and as a matter of the Federal Arbitration Act, which limits judicial review of arbitral decisions to final "awards."  The arbitral panel had decided only a preliminary issue of clause construction, had not even certified a class, and issued no "award." Justice Ginsburg's dissent echoes those arguments. She would have dismissed the case as improvidently granted.

Even if Stolt-Nielsen had a plea ripe for judicial review, Justice Ginsburg goes on to say, the Court should have rejected it on the merits. She stresses that the parties jointly "asked the arbitrators to decide whether the arbitration clause in their shipping contracts permitted class proceedings. The panel did just what it was commissioned to do. It construed the broad arbitration clause and ruled,expressly and only, that the clause permitted class arbitration. The Court acts without warrant in allowing Stolt-Nielsen essentially to repudiate its submission of the contract-construction issue to the arbitration panel, and togain, in place of the arbitrators? judgment, this Court?s de novo determination."

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on April 27, 2010 (boomark / email).