Supreme Court Reinforces Enforceability Of Delegation Clauses In Arbitration Agreements

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that when an arbitration delegates gateway issues of arbitrability to the arbitator to decide, a court may not consider questions of arbitrability, even where the party resisting arbitration argues that the arbitration demand is "wholly groundless." The decision—the first one issued by Justice Brett Kavanaugh—resolves a split in the circuit courts as to whether this "wholly groundless" exception is consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act. In rejecting this exception, the decision clarifies that courts have no role in determining threshold issues of arbitrability when the parties contractually agreed that the arbitrator would determine those issues. The ruling is the latest in the Supreme Court's steady drumbeat of pro-arbitration decisions.

The "Wholly Groundless" Exception Applied by the Fifth Circuit in the Schein Case

This case arose when Archer & White, a small dental equipment business, alleged violations of state and federal antitrust law against Henry Schein, Inc., a dental equipment manufacturer with whom Archer & White had entered into a contract. The arbitration provision in the contract provided that "any dispute" between the parties, except those seeking injunctive relief or those related to Schein's intellectual property, would be resolved by binding arbitration in accordance with the rules of the American Arbitration Association. After Archer & White filed its complaint seeking both damages and injunctive relief, Schein moved to compel arbitration and argued that the parties had incorporated the rules of the AAA, which grants the arbitrator the power to resolve the threshold question of arbitrability.

Archer & White opposed on the basis that the dispute was outside the scope of the arbitration agreement because the complaint sought injunctive relief (at least in part). In response, Schein argued that, even if the claim was excluded by the carve-out for injunctive relief, the parties had agreed that the arbitrator would decide arbitrability questions. Although the rules of the AAA provide that arbitrators have the power to decide arbitrability questions, the district court, relying on the Fifth Circuit Court's precedent in Douglas v. Regions Bank (5th Cir. 2014), denied the motion to compel arbitration as "wholly groundless" on its face because of the request for injunctive relief. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a circuit...