Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-35598/USCOURTS-ca9-13-35598-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CAREY M. BRENNAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

OPUS BANK, a California

corporation; STEPHEN H. GORDON,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-35580

D.C. No.

2:13-cv-00094-

RSM

CAREY M. BRENNAN,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

OPUS BANK, a California

corporation,

Defendant-Appellant,

and

STEPHEN H. GORDON,

Defendant.

No. 13-35598

D.C. No.

2:13-cv-00094-

RSM

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

Ricardo S. Martinez, District Judge, Presiding

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2 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

Argued and Submitted

May 8, 2015—Seattle, Washington

Filed August 11, 2015

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Andrew J. Kleinfeld,

and Ronald M. Gould, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Wallace

SUMMARY*

Arbitration

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of

plaintiff’s diversity action in favor of arbitration; reversed the

district court’s denial, as moot, of Opus Bank’s motion for

reconsideration of the district court’s implicit denial of its

motion to seal plaintiff’s complaint; and remanded for the

district court to decide Opus Bank’s motion to seal the

complaint in the first instance.

The plaintiff was the Executive Vice President of Opus

Bank when he signed an Employment Agreement that

contained an arbitration clause. Plaintiff alleged that Opus

Bank breached the Agreement and wrongfully terminated

him, and Opus Bank sought to compel arbitration.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 3

The panel held that federal law governed the arbitrability

question by default because the Agreement was covered by

the Federal Arbitration Act, and the parties did not clearly

and unmistakenly designate that nonfederal arbitrability law

applied.

The panel held that the Agreement’s express

incorporation of the Rules of the American Arbitration

Association (the Delegation Provision), as part of the

arbitration provision, constituted clear and unmistakable

evidence that the contracting parties agreed to arbitrate

arbitrability. The panel held that Rent-A-Center, West, Inc.

v. Jackson, 561 U.S. 63 (2010), applied to this case, and

required plaintiff to challenge the specific Delegation

Provision inside of the arbitration clause in order for the

district court – rather than the arbitrator – to determine the

validity of the arbitration clause. The panel concluded that

because plaintiff failed to make any arguments specific to the

Delegation Provision, and instead argued that the arbitration

clause as a whole was unconscionable under state law, the

court need not consider that claim because it was for the

arbitrator to decide in light of the parties’ delegation of that

question.

The panel held that the district court’s dismissal of

plaintiff’s claims did not moot Opus Bank’s motion to seal

the complaint because final judgment and the filing of a

notice of appeal did not divest the district court of its

jurisdiction over matters ancillary to the appeal, such as

protective orders.

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4 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

COUNSEL

Michael David Hunsinger (argued), The Hunsinger Law

Firm, Seattle, Washington, for Plaintiff-Appellant/CrossAppellee.

Daniel L. Thieme (argued) and Jennifer S. Pirozzi, Littler

Mendelson, P.C., Seattle, Washington, for DefendantAppellee/Cross-Appellant Opus Bank.

Julian Mack (argued), San Francisco, California; Patrick M.

Madden and Mark. S. Filipini, K&L Gates LLP, Seattle,

Washington, for Defendant-Appellee Stephen Gordon.

OPINION

WALLACE, Senior Circuit Judge:

Brennan appeals from the district court’s order dismissing

his action in favor of arbitration. Opus Bank cross appeals

from the district court’s implicit denial of its motion to seal

Brennan’s complaint, and the district court’s denial of its

motion for reconsideration as moot. We have jurisdiction of

both appeals pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm the

district court’s dismissal in favor of arbitration, but we

reverse the district court’s denial of Opus Bank’s motion for

reconsideration as moot. Because the district court has

inherent supervisory authority over its own records even after

final judgment and the filing of a notice of appeal, we remand

for the district court to decide Opus Bank’s motion to seal in

the first instance.

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 5

I.

Brennan became the Executive Vice President and

Director for Strategy and Corporate Development for Opus

Bank in December 2010, when he signed an Employment

Agreement with Opus Bank. The Employment Agreement

described Brennan’s duties in section 2 as those “customary,

appropriate and reasonable executive duties . . . normally

assigned to a person with such position at other similarly

situated banks, including such duties as are delegated to him

from time to time by the Chief Executive Officer,” Stephen

Gordon, to whom he was to report directly.

For the first several months of his employment, Brennan

performed executive-level duties that he considered

consistent with his position as Executive Vice President. But

by late 2011, Brennan said that he was beginning to be

excluded from many of the activities he had been hired to

perform, and that his involvement in important business

transactions had “steadily diminished.” Brennan also alleged

that although it was his responsibility to formulate Opus

Bank’s long-range strategic and financial objectives, Gordon

“began dismissing or rejecting Brennan’s . . . analyses of the

Bank’s . . . financial condition,” and “frequently relegate[d]

mundane tasks to Brennan that were not customary,

appropriate, and reasonable executive duties . . . normally

assigned to a person with such position at other similarly

situated banks.”

The Employment Agreement contained a provision

granting Brennan the right to terminate his employment for

“Good Reason,” whereupon he would be entitled to a

generous severance payment. “Good Reason” was defined in

the Employment Agreement to include a “material change in

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6 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

[Brennan’s] function, duties, or responsibilities with the

Bank,” that “would cause [Brennan’s] position to become one

of substantially lesser responsibility or scope from the

position and attributes described in [s]ection 2 above, unless

consented to by [Brennan].” Believing that such a “material

change” had occurred with respect to his work

responsibilities, Brennan sent Opus Bank a Notice of

Termination with Good Reason on March 19, 2012.

Opus Bank subsequently placed Brennan on

“administrative investigatorysuspension” while it retained an

independent attorney to investigate whether Brennan’s

termination was in fact for “Good Reason,” and whether,

based upon Brennan’s failure to attend certain mandatory

meetings, Opus Bank could terminate Brennan for “Cause,”

as defined in the Employment Agreement. After receiving the

attorney’s report, Opus Bank wrote a letter to Brennan on

April 18, 2012, notifying him that it was adopting the

attorney’s conclusions that Brennan did not have “Good

Reason” to terminate his employment, but that Opus Bank

also lacked “Cause” to terminate Brennan. Nonetheless, Opus

Bank told Brennan it was construing his March 19 Notice of

Termination as a voluntary resignation, and that Brennan

therefore was not entitled to a severance payment or other

termination benefits.

In January of the following year, Brennan sued Opus

Bank in federal district court under diversity jurisdiction. See

28 U.S.C. § 1332. Brennan’s complaint alleged that Opus

Bank breached the Employment Agreement and wrongfully

terminated him in violation of both California and

Washington state law. It also alleged that Opus Bank and

Gordon unlawfully withheld wages in violation of

Washington state law.

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 7

Brennan’s complaint acknowledged that section 16 of the

Employment Agreement (the Arbitration Clause), entitled

“Dispute Resolution Procedures,” was a mandatory

arbitration provision which provided in relevant part: “Except

with respect to any claim for equitable relief . . . any

controversy or claim arising out of this [Employment]

Agreement or [Brennan’s] employment with the Bank or the

termination thereof . . . shall be settled by binding arbitration

in accordance with the Rules of the American Arbitration

Association.” Nevertheless, Brennan argued that his “causes

of action should be resolved by litigation, rather than

arbitration,” because the Arbitration Clause was both

procedurally and substantively unconscionable, and therefore

unenforceable.

Opus Bank responded to Brennan’s complaint with a

motion to seal and to strike Brennan’s complaint, as well as

a motion to compel arbitration under the Arbitration Clause

and the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). In its motion to

compel arbitration, Opus Bank argued that both the

employment dispute and the question whether the Arbitration

Clause was unconscionable had to be decided by the

arbitrator instead of the court. Opus Bank argued that the

unconscionability of the Arbitration Clause also had to be

decided bythe arbitrator because the Employment Agreement

expressly incorporated the Rules of the American Arbitration

Association (AAA), one of which states that the “arbitrator

shall have the power to rule on his or her own jurisdiction,

including any objections with respect to the . . . validity of the

arbitration agreement.” Incorporation of the AAA rules, Opus

Bank contended, constituted clear and unmistakable evidence

that the parties intended to have this unconscionability

question decided by an arbitrator. The district court agreed

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8 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

with Opus Bank, and, applying federal arbitrability law,

dismissed the action in favor of arbitration.

The district court’s dismissal order, however, did not

address Opus Bank’s motion to seal Brennan’s complaint.

Consequently, Opus Bank filed a motion for reconsideration

of that issue, but the district court denied the motion as

“moot[],” given the district court’s earlier dismissal of the

underlying action.

Brennan timely appealed from the district court’s

dismissal in favor of arbitration, and Opus Bank timely crossappealed from the district court’s denial of Opus Bank’s

motion for reconsideration regarding the request to seal

Brennan’s complaint.

“We review de novo the district court’s decisions about

the arbitrability of claims.” Momot v. Mastro, 652 F.3d 982,

986 (9th Cir. 2011). Moreover, although we typically “review

for abuse of discretion the district court’s decision not to seal

the judicial record,” Oliner v. Kontrabecki, 745 F.3d 1024,

1025 (9th Cir. 2014), here we review de novo because “the

district court failed to exercise its discretion” by “denying as

moot the bulk of [Opus Bank’s] motion without considering

its merits.” Clark v. Capital Credit & Collection Servs., Inc.,

460 F.3d 1162, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006).

II.

Brennan’s opening brief narrows his appeal to a single

issue: “[t]he only issue before this Court is who—an

arbitrator or a judge—should decide” whether the Arbitration

Clause is unconscionable. The thrust of Brennan’s appeal is

that California law should apply, and that under California

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 9

law the district court erred in concluding that the specific

provision of the Arbitration Clause incorporating the AAA

rules of arbitration (Delegation Provision) “clearly and

unmistakably” delegated to an arbitrator the question whether

the Arbitration Clause was unconscionable and therefore

unenforceable.

A.

We begin by addressing the applicable law. Brennan

argues that the district court erred in applying federal

law—rather than California law—to decide this question.

However, federal law governs the arbitrability question by

default because the Agreement is covered by the FAA,

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc.,

473 U.S. 614, 626 (1985), and the parties have not clearly and

unmistakably designated that nonfederal arbitrability law

applies, see Cape Flattery Ltd. v. Titan Maritime, 647 F.3d

914, 921 (9th Cir. 2011).

Brennan concedes, as he must, that the FAA governs the

Employment Agreement because the FAA applies to any

contract, like the present one, “evidencing a transaction

involving commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 2. For “any arbitration

agreement within the coverage of the [FAA],” “[t]he court is

to make th[e] [arbitrability] determination by applying the

federal substantive law of arbitrability,” Mitsubishi Motors,

473 U.S. at 626, “absent clear and unmistakable evidence that

the parties agreed to apply non-federal arbitrability law.”

Cape Flattery, 647 F.3d at 921 (internal quotation marks

omitted).

The Employment Agreement does not clearly and

unmistakably indicate that California’s law of arbitrability

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10 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

should apply because it states only that “any controversy of

claim . . . shall be settled by binding arbitration”; that—in the

event of arbitration—“the parties shall retain the rights of all

discovery provided pursuant to the California Code of Civil

Procedure”; and that “[a]ll rights, causes of action, remedies

and defenses available under California law and equity . . . as

though in a court of law.” While the Employment Agreement

is clear that California’s procedural rules, rights, and

remedies apply during arbitration, it says nothing about

whether California’s law governs the question whether

certain disputes are to be submitted to arbitration in the first

place.

In Cape Flattery, we concluded that a similar arbitration

provision—which said “[a]ny dispute arising under this

Agreement shall be settled by arbitration . . . in accordance

with the English Arbitration Act 1996,”—was “ambiguous

concerning whether English law also applies to determine

whether a given dispute is arbitrable in the first place.”

647 F.3d at 921. The Employment Agreement at issue here is

similarly “ambiguous” because it does not expressly state that

California law governs the question of arbitrability. We

therefore hold that federal arbitrability law applies in the

present case.

Brennan’s argument is not assisted by Volt Information

Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior

University, 489 U.S. 468, 475–76 (1989). Volt dealt with a

dispute about whether the parties’ agreement to conduct

arbitration in accordance with the procedural rules of the

California Arbitration Act was enforceable even though the

agreement fell within the scope of the FAA. Although the

FAA preempts “state laws which ‘require a judicial forum for

the resolution of claims which the contracting parties agreed

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 11

to resolve by arbitration,’” id. at 478, quoting Southland

Corp. v. Keating, 465 U.S. 1, 10 (1984), the Court held that

the FAA does not “prevent[] the enforcement of agreements

to arbitrate under different rules than those set forth in the

[FAA] itself,” id. at 479 (emphasis added), because “[t]here

is no federal policy favoring arbitration under a certain set of

procedural rules,” id. at 476. However, the parties here do not

dispute which procedural rules are applicable during

arbitration. Rather, they dispute which substantive law

governs the arbitrability question. Volt’s holding does not

address this question and does not alter our conclusion that

federal law of arbitrability applies.

B.

Brennan next contends that even if federal arbitrability

law applies, the district court erred by concluding that

incorporation of the AAA rules constitutes “clear and

unmistakable” evidence that the parties intended to delegate

the arbitrability question to an arbitrator. We disagree.

Generally, in deciding whether to compel arbitration, a

court must determine two “gateway” issues: (1) whether there

is an agreement to arbitrate between the parties; and

(2) whether the agreement covers the dispute. Howsam v.

Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 537 U.S. 79, 84 (2002).

However, these gateway issues can be expressly delegated to

the arbitrator where “the parties clearly and unmistakably

provide otherwise.” AT&T Techs., Inc. v. Commc’ns Workers

of Am., 475 U.S. 643, 649 (1986) (emphasis added); see also

First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 944

(1995) (“Courts should not assume that the parties agreed to

arbitrate arbitrability unless there is ‘clea[r] and

unmistakabl[e]’ evidence that they did so”).

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12 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

The district court agreed with Opus Bank that under

federal arbitrability law, the Delegation Provision “clearly

and unmistakably” delegated to an arbitrator the question

whether the Arbitration Clause was enforceable by expressly

incorporating the AAA arbitration rules, one of which

provides that the “arbitrator shall have the power to rule on

his or her own jurisdiction, including any objections with

respect to the . . . validity of the arbitration agreement.”

In Oracle America, Inc. v. Myriad Group A.G., 724 F.3d

1069 (9th Cir. 2013) we observed that “[v]irtually every

circuit to have considered the issue has determined that

incorporation of the [AAA] arbitration rules constitutes clear

and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed to arbitrate

arbitrability.” Id. at 1074. We found this consensus

persuasive in holding that incorporation of the UNCITRAL

rules—which contain a jurisdictional provision “almost

identical” to the one in the AAA rules—constituted “clear

and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed the

arbitrator would decide arbitrability.” Id. at 1074–75. Now

that the question regarding incorporation of the AAA rules is

squarely before us, we hold that incorporation of the AAA

rules constitutes clear and unmistakable evidence that

contracting parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability.

The issue of the sophistication of the parties was raised at

oral argument. Our holding today should not be interpreted to

require that the contracting parties be sophisticated or that the

contract be “commercial” before a court may conclude that

incorporation of the AAA rules constitutes “clear and

unmistakable” evidence of the parties’ intent. Thus, our

holding does not foreclose the possibility that this rule could

also applyto unsophisticated parties or to consumer contracts.

Indeed, the vast majority of the circuits that hold that

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 13

incorporation of the AAA rules constitutes clear and

unmistakable evidence of the parties’ intent do so without

explicitly limiting that holding to sophisticated parties or to

commercial contracts. See Petrofac, Inc. v. DynMcDermott

Petroleum Operations Co., 687 F.3d 671, 675 (5th Cir. 2012);

Republic of Arg. v. BG Grp. PLC, 665 F.3d 1363, 1371 (D.C.

Cir. 2012); Fallo v. High–Tech Inst., 559 F.3d 874, 878 (8th

Cir. 2009); Qualcomm Inc. v. Nokia Corp., 466 F.3d 1366,

1373 (Fed. Cir. 2006); Terminix Int’l Co. v. Palmer Ranch

LP, 432 F.3d 1327, 1332 (11th Cir. 2005); Contec Corp. v.

Remote Solution Co., 398 F.3d 205, 208 (2d Cir. 2005);

Awuah v. Coverall N. Am., Inc., 554 F.3d 7, 10–12 (1st Cir.

2009).

Nevertheless, as in Oracle America, we limit our holding

to the facts of the present case, which do involve an

arbitration agreement “between sophisticated parties.” Oracle

America, 724 F.3d at 1075 & n.2. Indeed, it is undisputed that

Brennan was a sophisticated party, an experienced attorney

and businessman (a partner at Jones Day from 1984 to 2001,

and Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Deputy

Chief Legal Officer of Washington Mutual from 2001 to

2008), who executed an executive-level employment contract

with Opus Bank, a sophisticated, regional financial

institution.

Of course, the contract at issue here is an at-will

employment contract, not a commercial contract like the one

at issue in Oracle America. Cf. Circuit City Stores, Inc. v.

Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 114 (2001) (holding that the FAA

covers not only commercial contracts but also employment

contracts, implying that there is a difference between the

two); see also O’Tool v. Genmar Holdings, Inc., 387 F.3d

1188, 1202 (10th Cir. 2004) (stating that “[i]t is beyond

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14 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

dispute that at-will employment contracts . . . differ

significantly from commercial contracts,” and that the

differences between the two militate against implying a

covenant of good faith and fair dealing to at-will employment

contracts). However, we conclude that the differences

between the Employment Agreement at issue here and the

commercial contract at issue in Oracle America are irrelevant

to our determination whether these parties’ incorporation of

the AAA rules shows a clear and unmistakable intent to

delegate arbitrability to an arbitrator. We therefore hold that

the district court did not err in concluding that these parties’

incorporation of the AAA rules constituted “clear and

unmistakable” evidence of their intent to submit the

arbitrability dispute to arbitration. But we need not decide nor

do we decide here “the effect [if any] of incorporating [AAA]

arbitration rules into consumer contracts” or into contracts of

any nature between “unsophisticated” parties. Oracle

America, 724 F.3d at 1075 & n.2.

Brennan contends that despite the Delegation Provision,

the Arbitration Clause itself removes the unconscionability

question from its scope because it carves out “any claim for

equitable relief”and “unconscionability is an equitable matter

under California law.” We disagree for two reasons. First,

although courts have held that a defendant’s reliance on an

arbitration clause to avoid litigation is an equitable defense,

see, e.g., Mediterranean Enters., Inc. v. Ssangyong Corp.,

708 F.2d 1458, 1462 (9th Cir. 1983), it is not a claim for

equitable relief. Second, accepting Brennan’s argument

would directly contradict the fact that Brennan and Opus

Bank “clearly and unmistakably” delegated the

unconscionability determination to the arbitrator in the

Delegation Provision located in that very same Arbitration

Clause.

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 15

C.

Because a court must enforce an agreement that, as here,

clearly and unmistakably delegates arbitrability questions to

the arbitrator, the only remaining question is whether the

particular agreementto delegate arbitrability—the Delegation

Provision—isitself unconscionable. See Rent-A-Center, West,

Inc. v. Jackson, 561 U.S. 63 (2010). Brennan argues that the

district court erred in holding that Rent-A-Center required

him to challenge the specific Delegation Provision inside of

the Arbitration Clause in order for the court—rather than the

arbitrator—to determine the validity of the Arbitration

Clause. According to Brennan, Rent-A-Center did not alter

the general rule that as long as a party challenges the

enforceability of an arbitration clause specifically—rather

than the entire contract generally—the enforceability of the

arbitration clause is for the court, not the arbitrator, to decide.

But the facts in Rent-A-Center required the Supreme

Court to take this principle a step further. Until Rent-ACenter, the cases following this “specific challenge” principle

dealt primarily with contracts of a general subject matter (like

employment), which contained a single arbitration clause.

See, e.g., Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc. v. Cardegna, 546 U.S.

440 (2006). Rent-A-Center, however, involved a contract

whose exclusive subject matter was arbitration, and

embedded within that contract were “multiple written

provision[s] to settle by arbitration a controversy.” 561 U.S.

at 68 (internal quotation marks omitted). Two provisions

were relevant to the Court’s analysis. The first was an

agreement to arbitrate all disputes “arising out of Jackson’s

employment with Rent-A-Center.” Id. The second was an

agreement to delegate to an arbitrator resolution of “any

dispute relating to the . . . enforceability . . . of the

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16 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

[Arbitration] Agreement.” Id. Jackson, an employee of RentA-Center, challenged the entire Arbitration Agreement as

unconscionable. Id. In turn, Rent-A-Center sought to enforce

the specific delegation provision inside that contract to send

the question to an arbitrator. Id.

The Supreme Court concluded that this delegation

provision was “simply an additional, antecedent agreement

the party seeking arbitration asks the federal court to enforce,

and the FAA operates on this additional arbitration agreement

just as it does on any other.” Id. The Court then clarified the

general rule requiring specificity in the plaintiff’s challenge,

and held that when considering a challenge to the validity of

one of multiple, severable arbitration provisions, the Court

would always “require the basis of the challenge to be

directed specifically to the agreement to arbitrate [at issue]

before the court will intervene.” Id. (emphasis added); see

also id. (“If a party challenges the validity . . . of the precise

agreement to arbitrate at issue, the federal court must

consider the challenge before ordering compliance with that

agreement.” (emphasis added)).

The Court concluded that the arbitration agreement “at

issue” in Rent-A-Center was the delegation provision,

because that was the provision “that Rent-A-Center asks us

to enforce.” Id. at 71. The “remainder of the contract,” held

the Court, “is the rest of the agreement to arbitrate claims

arising out of Jackson’s employment with Rent-A-Center.”

Id. The court held that it made “no difference” that “the

underlying contract is itself an arbitration agreement” rather

than a contract unrelated to arbitration. Id. at 72. A federal

court’s duty to enforce an arbitration provision, held the

Court, “operates on the specific ‘written provision’ . . . that

the party seeks to enforce,” so “unless Jackson challenged the

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 17

delegation provision specifically, [the Court] must treat it as

valid . . . and must enforce it . . . leaving any challenge to the

validity of the [arbitration] Agreement as a whole for the

arbitrator.” Id. The court held that although Jackson had

challenged the “entire arbitration agreement” as

unconscionable, he “did not make any arguments specific to

the delegation provision.” Id. at 74. Consequently, the Court

said it “need not consider [his unconscionability claim]

because none of Jackson’s substantive unconscionability

challenges was specific to the delegation provision.” Id. at 73.

In order to have the federal court address his

unconscionability challenge, Jackson would have had to

argue that the agreement to delegate to an arbitrator his

unconscionability claim was itself unconscionable. Id. at 74.

We conclude that Rent-A-Center controlsthe present case.

Here, three agreements—each nested inside the other—are

relevant to our analysis: (1) Brennan’s Employment

Agreement, (2) the Arbitration Clause (section 16), and

(3) the Delegation Provision (i.e., incorporation of the AAA

rules which delegates enforceability questions to the

arbitrator). The last two are separate agreements to arbitrate

different issues. Thus, just like in Rent-A-Center, multiple

severable arbitration agreements exist. The arbitration clause

at issue, as in Rent-A-Center, is the Delegation Provision

because that is the arbitration agreement Opus Bank seeks to

enforce. By Brennan’s own admission, the delegation

provision is the “specific ‘written provision’” at issue. Id. at

72. He states the “only issue before this Court is who—an

arbitrator or a judge—should decide the forum” for resolving

the validity of the Arbitration Clause as a whole, and that

question is resolved by determining the validity of the

Delegation Provision alone. But since Brennan failed to

“make any arguments specific to the delegation provision,”

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18 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

id. at 74, and instead argued “that the [Arbitration Clause] as

a whole is unconscionable under state law,” id. at 75, “we

need not consider that claim,” id. at 73, because it is for the

arbitrator to decide in light of the parties’ “clear and

unmistakable” delegation of that question, as we held above.

Accordingly, the district court did not err in dismissing

Brennan’s claims in favor of arbitration.

Brennan’s reliance on Quilloin v. Tenet Health Sys.

Phila., Inc., 673 F.3d 221 (3d Cir. 2012) does not help him.

Brennan reads Quilloin to foreclose the requirement that a

party must specifically challenge the delegation provision if

the contract “contain[s] only one agreement to arbitrate”

because in such cases “[t]here [is] no need to distinguish

between multiple agreements to arbitrate.” However, the

critical difference between this case and Quilloin is that the

agreement in Quilloin “d[id] not purport to contain a[]

[severable] agreement to arbitrate arbitrability,” so Rent-ACenter, which dealt with multiple severable agreements to

arbitrate (including one to arbitrate arbitrability), did not

apply and “the question of arbitrability [was] one for the

court.” Id. at 229. Here, in contrast, like in Rent-A-Center,

there are multiple severable agreements to arbitrate, and

Brennan failed to challenge the specific one at issue—the

agreement to arbitrate arbitrability—as Rent-A-Center

requires. Quilloin is therefore distinguishable, and Rent-ACenter controls.

Brennan also misinterprets our holding in Bridge Fund

Capital Corp. v. Fastbucks Franchise Corp., 622 F.3d 996

(9th Cir. 2010), which came after Rent-A-Center, as implying

that Rent-A-Center controls only in cases where the entire

contract deals exclusivelywith arbitration. We held in Bridge

Fund Capital that “as long as the plaintiff’s challenge to the

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BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK 19

validity of an arbitration clause is a distinct question from the

validity of the contract as a whole, the question of

arbitrability is for the court to decide.” Id. at 998. Brennan

contends that Bridge Fund Capital stands for the proposition

that the plaintiff need not drill down into the global

arbitration provision—as required in Rent-A-Center—unless

the contract itself is one dealing exclusively with arbitration.

However, Bridge Fund Capital is distinguishable in the same

way Quilloin is distinguishable: it addressed a situation

involving a contract that was not exclusivelyabout arbitration

(franchising), but that contained only one arbitration

provision. It did not address the situation here, which

involves a contract not exclusively about arbitration

(employment) but—critically—involves multiple severable

arbitration agreements. Rent-A-Center controls in cases like

the present one, where there are multiple severable arbitration

agreements, only one of which is “at issue.”

We therefore affirm the district court’s order dismissing

this action in favor of arbitration.

III.

On cross appeal, Opus Bank argues that the district court

erred in denying as moot its motion for reconsideration to

seal Brennan’s complaint. We agree.

A district court may seal its records pursuant to its

inherent supervisory power over such documents. Hagestad

v. Tragesser, 49 F.3d 1430, 1434 (9th Cir. 1995); Nixon v.

Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 598 (1978) (“Every

court has supervisory power over its own records and files”).

Final judgment and even the filing of a notice of appeal does

not divest a district court of its jurisdiction over matters

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20 BRENNAN V. OPUS BANK

ancillary to the appeal, such as protective orders. Cf. Griggs

v. Provident Consumer Disc. Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58 (1982)

(“The filing of a notice of appeal is an event of jurisdictional

significance—it confers jurisdiction on the court of appeals

and divests the district court of its control over those aspects

of the case involved in the appeal.” (emphasis added)).

Therefore, the district court’s dismissal of Brennan’s claims

did not moot Opus Bank’s motion to seal Brennan’s

complaint. We vacate and remand for the district court to rule

on Opus Bank’s motion to seal, pursuant to its inherent

supervisory power over its own records.

Our order sealing certain of our records on appeal, which

we did only to maintain the status quo, should have no

bearing on the district court’s independent decision on

remand whether to seal its own records. The district court is

to examine the issue without reference to our sealing decision

and make its own decision.

AFFIRMED in part, and VACATED and REMANDED

in part.

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