The Rise And Fall Of Class Arbitration

Article by John M. Townsend¹

First published in AAA Yearbook on Arbitration & the Law 2010

Class arbitration is a useful procedural device in need of a friend. It is the first choice of almost no one as a means of resolving disputes involving large numbers of claimants or respondents. Rather, it is primarily a creature of the courts: The Supreme Court called it into existence in its Bazzle decision in 2003, and effectively disowned it in its Stolt-Nielsen decision in 2010.² Nevertheless, it has real advantages to offer as a method of dispute resolution, if the adversaries in the ongoing battle over class actions would stop shooting at each other long enough to consider them.