[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 13-12391

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cv-21948-MGC

NORRIS ANTHONY BROWN,

 Plaintiff,

KENNETH DOWNER, 

RICHARD GRAHAM YOUNG, 

ROAN DRUMOND SCOTT, 

CLIFF FITZ PATRICK, 

AUZZIE DUANE DABRELL, 

FITZROY LLOYD JOHNSON, 

STANLEY ARMANDO MULLINGS, 

GREGORY HUGHES, 

 Plaintiffs - Appellants,

versus

ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISES, LTD., 

 Defendant - Appellee.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

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(November 18, 2013)

Before WILSON, ANDERSON, and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Appellants are eight individuals who work or worked as stateroom 

attendants (“Attendants”) aboard cruise ships operated by Appellee Royal 

Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. In this putative class action, the Attendants allege Royal 

Caribbean unlawfully withheld or delayed paying wages in violation of the Seamen 

Wage Act, 46 U.S.C. § 10313 (“Wage Act”). When Royal Caribbean sought to 

enforce the mandatory arbitration provisions in the employment and collective 

bargaining agreements between the Attendants and Royal Caribbean, the 

Attendants raised an affirmative defense: They argued that because the arbitration 

provisions required the application of Norwegian law to any dispute between the 

Attendants and Royal Caribbean, they were contrary to public policy. 

The district court found that the United Nations Convention on Recognition 

and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (“the Convention”) and its 

implementing legislation required enforcement of the agreement to arbitrate. See 9 

U.S.C. §§ 201–208 (mandating enforcement of the Convention and incorporating 

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its provisions into federal law). The Attendants attempted to appeal, but this court 

dismissed their appeal for lack of jurisdiction, as the district court had not 

dismissed the Attendants’ claims. Brown v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., No. 

12-13001-DD (11th Cir. Oct. 10, 2012) (per curiam). The Attendants then asked 

the district court to dismiss their claims so they could seek appellate review of the 

district court’s order compelling arbitration. The district court obliged, and this 

appeal followed. 

I.

When reviewing a district court’s order to compel arbitration, we review 

questions of law de novo but accept findings of fact that are not clearly erroneous. 

First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U.S. 938, 947–48, 115 S. Ct. 1920, 

1926 (1995); Bautista v. Star Cruises, 396 F.3d 1286, 1294 (11th Cir. 2005). A 

district court must compel arbitration pursuant to an international commercial 

arbitration agreement so long as the jurisdictional prerequisites under the 

Convention are met and no affirmative defense applies. Bautista, 396 F.3d at 1294 

n.7 (listing four jurisdictional prerequisites). 

II.

First, we conclude that the district court’s determination that the Attendants 

admitted to the existence of a written arbitration agreement, establishing the only 

questionable jurisdictional prerequisite, was not a clear error. In Count I of their 

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complaint, the Attendants seek a declaratory judgment that the arbitration 

provisions of the agreements were unenforceable. That request presupposed both 

that the arbitration agreements existed and that they bound the Attendants. While 

parties may not stipulate to federal jurisdiction, Travaglio v. American Express 

Co., – F.3d —, 2013 WL 4406389, at *3 (11th Cir. 2013), they can admit facts 

establishing jurisdictional elements. In re CP Ships Ltd. Sec. Litig., 578 F.3d 

1306, 1311 (11th Cir. 2009), abrogated on other grounds by Morrison v. Nat’l 

Australian Bank Ltd., – U.S. —, 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2877 (2010). The district court 

found that the Attendants’ factual allegations established the existence of a written 

agreement binding the Attendants, and that finding was not clearly erroneous. See 

Cooper v. Meridian Yachts, Ltd., 575 F.3d 1151, 1178 (“[F]acts judicially admitted 

are facts established not only beyond the need of evidence to prove them, but 

beyond the power of evidence to controvert them.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)). 

Second, the Attendants may not raise their affirmative defense at this stage. 

A party opposing arbitration pursuant to an international commercial agreement 

may not seek to avoid arbitration on the basis that it is contrary to public policy. 

Lindo v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., 652 F.3d 1257, 1276 (11th Cir. 2011). At the 

arbitration-enforcement stage, parties may raise certain “standard breach-ofcontract defenses” that “can be applied neutrally on an international scale.” 

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Bautista, 396 F.3d at 1302 (internal quotation marks omitted). These include 

“fraud, mistake, duress, and waiver,” id., but not public policy defenses, which “by 

definition cannot be applied neutrally on an international scale.” Lindo, 652 F.3d 

at 1276. 

III.

The Attendants’ attempt to invoke Thomas v. Carnival Corp., 573 F.3d 1113 

(11th Cir. 2009), to support their public policy argument is unavailing. There, a 

panel of this court held that an arbitration provision requiring application of 

foreign law constituted a waiver of seafarers’ rights under the Wage Act and was 

therefore unenforceable as contrary to public policy. Id. at 1124. But in Lindo, the 

majority made clear that Thomas’s expansion of defenses available against 

enforcement of an international arbitration agreement violated the terms of the 

Convention and the holding of Bautista, an earlier precedent. Lindo, 652 F.3d at 

1278. The public policy argument is appropriate only at the arbitrationenforcement stage. Id. at 1263. Thomas, therefore, violated the prior panel 

precedent rule. Id. at 1278; see also United States v. Smith, 122 F.3d 1355, 1359 

(11th Cir. 1997) (setting out prior panel precedent rule, whereby earlier panel 

holdings bind this court “unless and until they are overruled en banc or by the 

Supreme Court”). This court has since confirmed Lindo’s holding multiple times. 

E.g., Quiroz v. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. S.A., – F. App’x —, 2013 WL 

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3185470, at *6 (11th Cir. 2013); Arauz v. Carnival Corp., 466 F. App’x 815, 816–

17 (11th Cir. 2012); Fernandes v. Carnival Corp., 484 F. App’x 361, 362 (11th Cir. 

2012); Henriquez v. NCL (Bahamas), Ltd., 440 F. App’x 714, 716 (11th Cir. 

2011); Maxwell v. NCL (Bahamas), Ltd., 454 F. App’x 709, 710 (11th Cir. 2011). 

To the extent the Attendants ask us to undermine it, we decline the invitation and 

affirm the district court’s order.

AFFIRMED.

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