into includes but is not limited to claims arising out of or relating to any aspect of the relationship between us whether based on contract tort statute fraud misrepresentation or any other legal theory there can be no question that romero's stela claim falls within the broad scope of the trade in private and the district court did not hold otherwise instead it read this all encompassing language out of the private based on its belief that the f a a applies only to agreements to arbitrate claims arising out of the contract direct t v truck runs them over squash them that's correct it would all fall within the scope of the arbitration provision now of course that is not this case and let me say that the th circuit has confront well i don't want to waste the time it wouldn't be a difference if you're talking about a contract between equals where they both agree that anything that comes up between us should be arbitrated contract like this which is interpreted according to its terms the supreme court has said that over and over and over again and these terms are not ambiguous if they were ambiguous you would have to construe them in favor of or betray ssion the supreme court said that too  is not because the argument i think that judge martinez was articulating wasn't really advanced at least not very very directly but the th circuit pretty much said we don't look at hypotheticals that have nothing to do with the actual claim in the case before us we evaluate whether the claim before us was it is within the scope of the arbitration provision and if it is we enforce it facts that cases called andaman and he said this case was about trying to use an arbitration provision that was in one long agreement to cover claims arising out of the   as written and let me circle back now to the key point this court over and over again has said broad arbitration provisions are fully enforceable the brown it's just another way of arguing that statutory claims are non arbitrary supreme court has time and time again held is not so and then in subsequent cases this court has said that if the clause is broad enough and has cited brown as an example the claims will be covered even in the really important facts of doe vs princess cruise line this court said if the arbitration clause had said any and all claims between us instead of going on to say arising out of the employment agreement if it had just put a period after between us the claims of the plaintiff in that case would have been covered by the or betrays from profit and that you know that ploy he who is a citizen of the  russian similarly similarly not i'm equal bargaining position if you will with the employer you know the court had no problem saying in that clip case that half of our claims w and the direct t v satellite fell on his head after his contract had resolved i think you suggested that somewhat reluctantly that that would probably fall within this arbitration agreement couldn't you also read the cla claims arising out of or relating to any aspect of the relationship between us to not include that kind of a claim that's totally unrelated to any relationship between the parties while that one you could but we have the key language is before that which says all disputes and claims between us and this is just one illustration of several exclusive claims that would be covered by would be nice if we could say no no they're not included don't worry about it i have to answer candidly that they are included because of the breath of the language of the cause so you're saying that the limiting construction would not be one that direct it would advocate for i don't think we could plausibly advocate from in the breadth of the preamble to that section so but again i think the prime case is a good precedent for the proposition you don't need to worry about a case that's not in front of you the question is whether this case is much more clearly within the mainstream of you know for the cause you're relying on clearly it's related to an aspect of the relationship after all the information that mr romero claims should not have been disclosed to our expert witness what been in our possession but for the fact that he's a customer so to distinguish some of the other cases this court has decided in the past this could not this claim could not be bought brought by a non customer you have to be a customer in order to bring so it is within the heartland of this or betrays hypotheticals about traps or towers or you know any other kind of far out claim really shouldn't influence how you interpret the clause in this case i'd also like to point out that the district courts limitation of  the supreme court has addressed the f a a in connection with clauses that say arising out of or relating to the agreement and the words relating to the agreement are not in section two of the f a a either so under the the clause said disputes arising out of verbal it relating to an agreement is easily broad enough to encompass a claim for fraud and inducement the court said and then other cases i would say to you two or deal more versus interstate lane in which the arbitration provision was actually in an exchange application for a securities broker it wasn't even in his employment agreement and the supreme court still said that the so could have subject to arbitration in its briefing and in court today council has not addressed two key points one is that plaintiff's claims arise from direct t v s conduct in this litigation directv has not cited a single case arbitration clause must be interpreted under maryland law directv never addresses the objective standard contract interpretation or maryland's significant relationship to which requires when examining arbitration clause that there  here is different then brown and for three reasons two factual one legal and examining the clause the court needs to examine what is the contractual relationship what does the language say and what is the standard by which the court should interpret here unlike brown it's a consumer contract it's a much more narrow in scope than an employment relationship which involves an entire day your premises  range of interactions that come across for an employment relationship where is this is only a consumer relationship for the payment of in the receipt of television service that's the narrow scope so that they're not that might be a useful public policy distinction in the eyes of some people it's it doesn't seem to me that that's a distinction that's ever been drawn either in statute or by the supreme court what this is what we have to draw that distinction well and under maryland law and more broadly under the objective standard contract interpretation the standard is what a reasonable consumer would interpret the language to me and so if it's a consumer relationship the reasonable person is the consumer for that relationship the  looked at what the relationship was for the consumer relationship and found that the dispute at issue did not arise under the arbitration clause or the contract it right but did it but did it say that there is a difference and how we ought to look at contracts between consumers and a business versus contracts between employees in a business that case to not address that issue because it was a consumer contract so there was no need to look more broadly but if we look at the supreme court itself counsel said that supreme court dictates looking at the language of the contract that's not exactly what the supreme court says and st options for example the supreme court sets down the basic standard the basic objective is to ensure that quote arbitration agreements like other contracts are enforced according to their terms and according to the intentions of the parties and so here because it is a consumer contract necessarily you need to look at the intention of the parties and the attention would be the reasonable consumer because that's the party to the contract not an employee not a business relationship it's a consumer relationship and that's well grounded in supreme court precedent how what how could you take well what intention would you draw from the language in this this language doesn't just say like some of the cases go for instance said if the court would have stopped it all disputes that may have been the end of it but here it doesn't just say all disputes it says all disputes that it talks about claims that arise from a relate to the contractual ation ship and it talks about disputes related to advertising a reasonable consumer is not going to see that language and think that covers disputes that are not related to the contract  that's not how it described it and the rd step that you would go to is to look at what the relevant legal standard it's the objective standard contract interpretation foreseeability under the th circuit it is not foreseeable to a reasonable consumer that you would have a dispute that doesn't arise from the contract that doesn't relate to the contract but is instead related to litigation conduct and unrelated litigation and that claim would fall under the  that's here as your owners have noted based on direct he was argument there is no logical end to the coverage of their clause and it's just not foreseeable to a consumer for an hour consumer relationship for television service that you would be subjecting yourself to every conceivable claim of any kind that had no relation to that at all that's just not how the courts have looked at it i would also like the courts i mean i'm looking at the relationship that's a point that we've made there are certainly cases that have held that there are claims that do not arise out of contract that are not subject to arbitration and i think dover says princess cruise lines provides an excellent example of that in that case that it was an invasion of privacy claim based on the disclosure of the rape victims personal information her name to intimidate and to embarrass her and invasion of privacy claim is the common law analogue to the stella claim that's at issue here was a delray beach police and firefighters retirement systems where we said there is nothing unusual about an arbitration clause that requires arbitration of all disputes between the parties to the agreement we have and for such a cause before the causative instant it events to clear intent to cover more than just those matters set forth in the contract so again that the  way to look at it is to look at the track relationship the language of the contract and the standard so there there there may be clauses certainly that are broadly worded and they can be enforced on a broad basis how how would work this contract more if you were directv and trying to get covered what they're saying this this contract covers how would you edit the contract what would you say to make it cover everything rather than the more limited set of claims they suggesting that the current contract so certainly the court in wexler that we cited in our papers is a court that looked at the exact same language here and what that court said is that if you want a reasonable objective consumer to think that claims that did you not rise out of a contract or relate to the contract are covered you need to be explicit in so saying and so here if directv wanted to encompass claims that were not related to the contract it should it's just not foreseeable to a reasonable consumer that those claims would be at issue here as a different argument though well that's the standard by which we match look at it we can't just look at the language in the abstract we need to look at the standard through which you interpret it and the contractual relationship it's part of a package by which you much analyze this and so again if you had language in a type of contract that was not a consumer contract right if you are having a reasonable amount of compensation in your employment relationship employees can expect you do all sorts of things where certain uniforms come to work at a certain time say use certain language but it wouldn't be reasonable to think that in a consumer relationship you would expect a consumer to use certain language if you come into a store or wear uniform to come into a consumer store that's just not foreseeable for that type of contractual relationship and so there are certain provisions that you would just not expect to have if you want to be include those you need to be explicit if nothing else so i guess i guess  asking is how how could you be more explicit than saying all disputes d for example says no reasonable person would think that checking a box accepting the terms and conditions necessary to taint cell phone service but obligate them to arbitrate literally every possible dispute he or she might have of the writer quote if a company wishes to bind court cites to that standard at fact page five of the order and faithfully applies that the district court however found that there were not doubts about the scope that it was not reasonable to interpret this  in a way that would encompass this type of claim but so far afield from the contract itself there's an interesting theoretical arguments i think about the all disputes in claims breath as and if to settle just falls on someone's head but how how the claims here at a minimum relating to the relationship between the parties in the contract between the parties and so and i guess not even there in the contract but the relationship between the parties yes your honor the th circuit and griggs out of maryland applying maryland law both address this and they say that when you're looking at the relationship it must be more than an entity incidental relation if we look at relationship it's a very broad concept in some sense i'm related to your honor's and that if we go back far enough they'll be a common ancestor but if you ask whether i'm related to you the answer would be no common sense here there is  some degree of relationship here because they got the information for this person through a consumer relationship but the claim itself is not related it's what it's it's related to the litigation conduct the question is still whether it is forseeable to a reasonable jack to consumer there's no logical connection between signing up for television service and having your personal information disclosed elude cation tactic those are not related and because those are not related  doesn't qualify under the related to provision and not be it may not be justifiable i don't know but i'm not i'm not sure i see quite how they're not related in that the only reason that the company had that information was because of the customer relationship again if we look at the case for example like doe the only reason that the  and so again there may be some relationship but the question is whether it's just an incidental relationship as was talked about indo or greg's and maryland or it's a relationship that is tethered to the contract itself or the contract relationship and there's no relation between the contract and the contractual relationship one way of courts of thought about that is you could perform every duty under the contract  concepcion of course involved a consumer contract that had the same language once again and there was no suggestion by the plaintiffs by the district court by the th circuit or by the supreme court that there was something improperly and improperly overbroad about eighteen t s arbitration clause which the court presumed and the parties presume would apply to a claim for false advertising that preceded the entry into it greenman customers went to the store they allege that they were awarded to the store by a promise that the cellphones would be given to them for free in connection with their service plan when in fact they had paid california sales tax on what about what about the relationship the comparison that your friend at the other table has drawn between this case and the princess cruise lines why isn't this allegedly illegal behavior comparable to the illegal behavior the plaintiff in that case well i mean obviously setting aside the nature of the crimes of course but the fact the fact that these people were were customers the argument i think is that the fact that these people are customers  didn't mean that they could be subjected to this kind of treatment from direct t v what's your response to that argument well dough is distinguishable in two respects the st respect all and again five out of the ten were sent to arbitration anyway because the court felt that they did arise out of the employment relationship so that the distinction one distinction too is that this court said those things could have happened to a passenger so my colleague was in correct in suggesting that this case is just like that case this court expressly said that it wouldn't be related to the employment agreement because those things could have happened to a passenger here as i mentioned before it isn't possible that there could have been a stellar claim but for the fact that mr romero was a customer and direc t v had his information i want to pick up also on on the point that this was done in the context of litigation and there's no precedent for that ever happening this is a red herring if if the information had been disclosed in some other way for example  data breach or a rogue employee or even intentionally the same claim would exist the fact that it happened i think more innocently in a sense by us giving it to our expert in order to defend ourselves  litigation that doesn't create some kind of substantive difference that would warrant not constrain the or betray clause to cover the claim finally just very briefly on the case judge clark in that case decided the case decided the case on the basis of contract formation that is not the basis for the decision below the court found that there was a valid contract and held that it was that the claim was not within its scope so and that matters because the present the the presumption in favor of arbitrary bill it doesn't apply to contract formation but does apply to scope also the facts are  cellphone agreement even know the claim was against the different part of the company with which she didn't have an agreement so that difference isn't present here this is the same customer a same sa company the claim is against as the company with which she has the agreement thank you you