Courts Should Decide Whether Federal Arbitration Act Applies, Even If Arbitration Agreement Delegates Such Questions To Arbitrator

Key Points

• The Supreme Court held that courts should determine whether disputes are excluded from arbitration under the FAA, even if the parties agreed that arbitrators should decide all questions of arbitrability.
• The Court also held that the exemption under Section 1 of the FAA for "contracts of employment" of transportation workers applies to both independent contractors and employees in the trucking industry.

Background

Dominic Oliveira ("Oliveira") worked for New Prime—an interstate trucking company—pursuant to an independent contractor operating agreement, which contained a mandatory arbitration provision specifying that an arbitrator should decide threshold questions of arbitrability.