Supreme Court Re Arbitration : Go Ask Your Congress

With its last opinion of 2015, the Supreme Court added DIRECTV v. Imburgia to the ever-growing line of decisions reversing California courts refusal to enforce provisions in arbitration agreements that barred class arbitration. Imburgia presents the Court's second look at the hostility of California law to waivers of class wide arbitration. Three years ago, after California courts refused to enforce provisions in arbitration agreements that barred class arbitration (on the ground that the provisions were unconscionable), a closely divided court in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion disagreed, holding that the Federal Arbitration Agreement ("FAA") preempted the California doctrine invalidating those waivers.