A plurality on the Court holds that an arbitrator may order class arbitration to proceed based on the terms of an arbitration provision.

Relevant Facts: Multiple consumers separately received loans from Green Tree to buy mobile homes or to make home improvements. The loan contracts each included a choice of law provision and an arbitration clause. The consumers sued, independently of each other and Green Tree moved to compel arbitration in each action. The plaintiffs then separately sought class status. The court granted the class certification and also ordered arbitration. The class plaintiffs won over $10M in arbitration. The defendant appealed, claiming class arbitration was legally impermissible. The state Supreme Court ruled for the class plaintiffs, holding “that the contracts were silent in respect to arbitration, that they consequently authorized class arbitration, and that arbitration had properly taken that form.”

Question Before The Court: Can the question of whether a forced arbitration clause precludes class proceedings be determined by an arbitrator?

The Opinion: Under the facts, a plurality concluded that an arbitrator must determine whether a contract forbids class arbitration. To the Court, the relevant question was what kind of arbitral proceedings the parties agreed to – individual or class? In the Court’s view, the answer is to be determined as a matter of contract interpretation on a case by case basis, something the Court reasoned arbitrators are well situated to resolve. The Court held that because it was not a question of whether arbitration would occur, but what form of arbitration would occur—individual or class—the arbitrator could decide.

It is worth noting that the Justices, in speaking about the different types of arbitral proceedings, never questioned the permissibility of class proceedings in arbitration. On the contrary, this opinion reads as though it were a foregone conclusion that class arbitration was an entirely ordinary way to proceed. This assumption deteriorates in the next few cases, as the Court begins to redefine the very nature of arbitration as a bilateral process. In hindsight, one can see how this case set the stage for the enforceability of nearly all class action bans in forced arbitration clauses.