KPMG LLP v. Robert Cocchi et al. (565 U.S. 18)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided November 7, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 565 U.S. 18 · 132 S. Ct. 23
- Decided
- November 7, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2011
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Agreements to arbitrate that fall within the scope and coverage of the Federal Arbitration Act (Act), 9 U. S. C. § 1 et seq., must be enforced in state and federal courts. State courts, then, “have a prominent role to play as enforcers of agreements to arbitrate.” Vaden v. Discover Bank, 556 U. S. 49, 59 (2009). The Act has been interpreted to require that if a dispute presents multiple claims, some arbitrable and some not, the former must be sent to arbitration even if this will lead to piecemeal litigation. See Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd, 470 U. S. 213, 217 (1985). From this it follows that state and federal courts must examine with care the complaints seeking to invoke their jurisdiction in order to separate arbitrable from nonarbitrable claims. A court may not issue a blanket refusal to compel arbitration merely on the grounds that some of the claims could be resolved by the court without arbitration. See ibid. In this case the Fourth District Court of Appeal of the State of Florida upheld a trial court’s refusal to compel arbitration of respondents’ claims after determining that two of the four claims in a complaint were nonarbitrable. Though the matter is not altogether free from doubt, a fair reading of the opinion indicates a likelihood that the Court of Appeal failed to determine whether the other two claims in the complaint were arbitrable. For…
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