an arch the arbitration agreement at issue in this appeal requires all disputes to be improper in individual arbitration as the supreme court has held repeatedly parties may not becomes how to arbitrate in any manner other than traditional individual arbitration absent express contractual authorization and an epic systems the supreme court warned lower courts to be alert to new devices and formulas that would undermine the been getting a lot of the individual can claim here they didn't do anything other than file their own individual arbitration demands your complaint is about as the conduct of the council but council is not a party to this arbitration agreement of an agreement with these individual drivers and they give you money from my fans actually it did your honor they link their claims together and  really from the outset of the demand the original demand that was filed with triple a this is then proceeding in an m d i like manner it has not been individual arbitration and that's really the  petitioner's claims themselves that have been aggregated consolidated in coordinated in this manner and i would like the parties fall i mean i know you have this boilerplate allegation that they all file sort of the issue but instead we have gotten aggregate across the board rulings on critical threshold arbitrary filippi questions but before the aaa they have aggregated be so it's not just about what the petitioners did and i do think it are confronted with here is something very different from individual arbitration it's really a distortion of that and the cases have been aggregated by aaa in a way that violates the party's arbitration but just because there are rules provide them doesn't mean parties should be subjected to that and that's what the supreme court did say has said over and over again that here what we're dealing with is aaa is at the time to force the parties to are betrayed in a way that while it's our actually rushed into court and filed a lawsuit on behalf of all five thousand you know those individuals participated in that in this lawsuit that brought us here to discourse and they did so in a way once again that was in the aggregate court your honor that goes to the heart of the nd issue in this appeal which is the delegation was the party did not clearly and unmistakably delegate this dispute to the arbitrator as we've explained and the standard is clear dispute relating to or arising out of the class action waiver is for the court to decide and the classic question my dear is where is the choir's individual arbitration but it is also i mean that's the those against you well your honor that interpretation would really read out of the agreement out of section eight to the language about any dispute relating to or i think out of the class actually labor and we have to read the agreement in a way that harmonizes all of the provisions there is a section ten before that you're on or point to that calls out more specific disputes which are the type that usually have arisen and it makes sense that parties with all those out and specific examples that they're course but it is simply a cross reference to ten before and if we want to know what is the substantive scope of this provision you have to look at them before i don't believe so your honor because it does not say only  stated in section before below that the two provisions really should be read together and harmonized and we think that the better interpretation is that the language in before it was simply calling yes we do your honor because this is a delegation issue this is a question of arbitrary ability and whether the arbitration can proceed and this collective m e d o like manner and this court just last week and ship supreme court has said over and over again that this have to be clear and unmistakable and i think what we're dealing with here shows exactly why sports are needed because this is a new device that really contradicts the not only the parties agreement but the purpose of the f a and the traditional arbitration that was in vision and i would just once again point the court to there are many places in the record i think the clearest example if the court is looking for what determinations in a collective basis and it's the jointer of these claims in this way and insisting that they that they proceed lockstep and that if one can't go forward unless they all do in making these across the board determinations we never got our hearing before triple a on many individualized issues here and so that's why this and in opting for it and we believe it's for the court to decide  had insisted on proceeding with the class arbitration i think we would all agree at that point that that would we might have picked for play but they couldn't do that they can't proceed on a class basis we think that this is a it is  we're dealing with that here and we think that that does violate the party's agreement and that aaa shouldn't be allowed to proceed in this way because that makes it more costly and makes it more procedurally complex and i'm i'm just collectively before a single mediator they pushed us to do that and to force the parties into a somewhat fast like settlement and so once again it is that aggregation that is the problem and we think that it is not clear morning may please the court i can't help but note the remarkable bait and switch that post makes is attempting in this case when post mates repeatedly enforced its arbitration agreement to bar class actions it was all too happy to enforce the rule of well established rule that agreements to arbitrate must be enforced according to their terms and that plaintiff's arguments about arbitration individual arbitration being burned some or inefficient were no basis to override the arbitration agreement that position left tens of thousands of couriers working propose mates with only two choices they could drop their claims entirely or they could file their demands individually with triple x our clients picked their number to every single one of them filed an individual demand on aaa standard demand form they metrical a's filing fee requirements aaa determined that they had properly invoked the procedures for an individual arbitration and now post mates is twisting itself in knots to try to avoid both the clear delegation clause in its contract and to argue that the very process required by its agreement is now prohibited agreement but at the end of the day this is just a case about contract interpretation and the contract here is clear so i start with the delegation issue this is not a nd one i just beg to differ with with you w yes thank you thank you those were offered at night my counterpart is correct that the court in st auctions drew a distinction between what it called the who decides question and the what is decided question and the court there which is involved the case with no delegation cause at all said where parties have already addressed what gets arbitrated we're going to assume that they wanted everything to go when they haven't addressed at all the question of who decides an arcane subject they use the word arcane and they said a party often may not focus on the question or on the significance of having arbitrators decide the scope of their own powers so for that reason the court was quote has its it hesitated to interpret silence or ambiguity and delegation of our bits realty issues as giving the arbitrator's that our so that's the what we have here is the precise opposite reason fact pattern that from the one that motivated the court here the parties have addressed the intricate detail maybe not perfectly in your honour's view but they have clearly thought a lot about the contract things a lot about delegation has a categorical delegation of all issues to the arbitrator and has a carve out of it and reaffirms that but for the carve out everything must go to the arbitrator if the question is how do we decide what the parties intent is there as manifested by the words of the contract i would submit that the best way to get at that intent is to just properly interpret the words of the contract and not put a thumb on the scale in any one direction i won't belabor the delegation issue as to whether it's clear i will just highlight one point that you noted in our structure is also apparent in the overall structure of the contract on the very st page of post meets arbitration agreement in all caps it says as noted below this agreement requires the parties to resolve disputes through final and binding arbitration on an individual basis to the fullest extent permitted by law so if post mates position is that that structure as noted below here's a here's a state and is an independent command that's not limited by the leader provisions and that clause alone requires delegation because parties are perfectly allowed to delegate all questions of arbitrary billeted with no exceptions to arbitrators now we think as we said in our brief that you're about to tell us about you don't think we should be meddling at all we should just say you know what the parties agreed to ship all of this to aaa and let them sort it out that's correct ok and i think that this court would have discretion if it's your argument or you want central conflict between these two regions if we agreed with you that it was clear that the parties intended for the arbitrator's service all whether your clients conduct violated the class action waiver that's all we would say we would just say it's not for us to decide aaa you're going to have to sort this out and the parties that you know best best best of luck to you and we would save nothing further that am i correct and none well certainly we're happy with that and i think the key point is that again i'm not asking too hard i think i just knowing this this possibility but what i would frame it as is there's two alternative grounds for him and i agree with you your honor that the sort of logically intuitively antecedent want to get you st is delegation which is why i'm not fighting that but i think in your discretion you put up you could address either of the grounds for a firm and or both and the site i would give for reaching it a question like that after a threshold issue is planned parenthood of greater washington which is in the briefs it's not i think they're at least making the argument that a what your honor just described is incorrect i think what you just described is correct so i think you could you could describe it that way as part of the answering the question i will note there is there the aaa rules are not just as the court speaker said in that case interpretive guides when they're incorporated by the parties agreement they are treated as terms of the riemann and the aaa rules say that several things  here as to threshold issues that are needed you know there's inevitably certain things have to happen before the arbitrator gets appointed like when one picks a private dispute resolution mechanism there are fees that need to be paid it is not free like if one dollar goes to the courts so  requirements are met for filing once they do the parties can take it up with the arbitrator postmen signed up for that for that process and i want to be very clear  means has focused entirely as just for the noted on the administrative steps aaa has taken in order to initiate arbitrations we don't believe the contract says anything about how  s that is all going individually the only question is whether aaa needs to send five thousand e mails or can send one e mail because the council are the same for the parties and it is their host means arguments throughout the briefs are been at war with each other because on the one hand post meets complains that the filing of so many demands creates a lot of administrative work and slows things down but on the other hand they seem to be suggesting that they're decide the merits of it as an alternative ground we have to leave it to the arbitrator yeah i think it does say that i think that case and the case where one would normally think that a court can't reach the question is where it's the or would be reach order to see to stop the parties from going to arbitration i think as i noted different where the question is there's multiple grounds to affirm and send it to the arbitrator that i don't know that i it's always dangerous to get in distinctions jurisdiction and on jurisdictional questions but i don't know that is that jurisdictional question in the true sense it is a question of contract interpretation and there's multiple weight parts of the contract one could look to to say that the parties have to i'm sorry your honor i lost you from a minute there yes i just got a message from soon but that my internet connection is unstable now that that's that's not are you able to hear me no i am thank you i'm sorry i just want to follow up on jeff miller's question because i'm just trying to get clarity on what it is one has to do i'm kind of remembering the lines get the sense that you actually want us to decide this question because this is this gets arising in other jurisdictions if you like to have  threshold question completely happy with that full stop the broader interest flows from the fact that yes this is an important question a broader impact and it's it's frankly  frustrating that when left with no option other than filing individual demands for arbitration our clients are then criticised for pursuing remedies in the only manner possible  to opt out many carriers have opted out of this agreement it's a very fair opt out and the nd point if there are many arbitrations going forward over a one hundred right now before tripling but those have gone forward individually and not in an aggregate manner and it is the claimants here the petitioners who have chosen to go about things in this way and we do attribute to parties the actions of their council so you know i think that applies here as well and this is what  caused the backlog in the problems with the boy and it is not up to aaa to decide that it can proceed in an aggregate manner when a party's agreement says that only individual arbitration is allowed under section we know that this is an issue for courts to decide presumptively we know that from the ship cod case and here the district court agreed that the clear and unmistakable standard applies are these all agreed that so it's i matter this is about whether an arbitration agreement exists between off five thousand individuals we know that the earlier one thousand carriers either never signed up to use the platform never entered into an arbitration agreement they release claims decision then we do very much want to go forward in an individual manner and we've made every every time we've made that clear to triple a missionary and i hope to this court today that that is really what we're looking for here