Another Federal Appeals Court Finds Availability of Class Arbitration Is Question for Court
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In a footnote in Sutter, SCOTUS hinted that the question of whether an arbitration agreement allowed for class arbitration may be one of the “gateway” questions of arbitrability that are presumptively for courts to decide. Last year, the Sixth Circuit went one step further, finding that the availability of class arbitration defaults to the courts. And this week, the Third Circuit agreed.
In Opalinksi v. Robert Half Int’l, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2014 WL 3733685 (3d Cir. July 30, 2014), a putative class of plaintiffs sued their employer. Their employment agreements called for arbitration, but said nothing about whether classwide arbitration was permitted. The employer moved to compel arbitration and the district court granted that motion, finding that the arbitrator should determine whether class arbitration was available.
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