Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 24, 2019 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- April 24, 2019
- Term
- October Term 2018
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Unions
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. The Federal Arbitration Act requires courts to enforce covered arbitration agreements according to their terms. See 9 U.S.C. § 2. In Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp. , 559 U.S. 662, 130 S.Ct. 1758, 176 L.Ed.2d 605 (2010), we held that a court may not compel arbitration on a classwide basis when an agreement is "silent" on the availability of such arbitration. Because class arbitration fundamentally changes the nature of the "traditional individualized arbitration" envisioned by the FAA, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis , 584 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 1612, 1623, 200 L.Ed.2d 889 (2018), "a party may not be compelled under the FAA to submit to class arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that the party agreed to do so," Stolt-Nielsen , 559 U.S. at 684, 130 S.Ct. 1758 (emphasis in original). We now consider whether the FAA similarly bars an order requiring class arbitration when an agreement is not silent, but rather "ambiguous" about the availability of such arbitration. I Petitioner Lamps Plus is a company that sells light fixtures and related products. In 2016, a hacker impersonating a company official tricked a Lamps Plus employee into disclosing the tax information of approximately 1,300 other employees. Soon after, a fraudulent federal income tax return was filed in the name of Frank…
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