Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-133_19m1.pdf
Page Number: 27.0

14 

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. v. ITALIAN COLORS 

RESTAURANT 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

case was “most unlikely to go unresolved” because AT&T’s
agreement  contained  a  host  of  features  ensuring  that 
“aggrieved customers who filed claims would be essentially
guaranteed  to  be  made  whole.”  Id.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at
17–18)  (internal  quotation  marks  and  brackets  omitted).
So the Court professed that AT&T Mobility did not impli-
cate the only thing (a party’s ability to vindicate a merito-
rious claim) this case involves.

And  if  that  is  not  enough,  AT&T  Mobility  involved  a 
state  law,  and  therefore  could  not  possibly  implicate  the
effective-vindication  rule.  When  a  state  rule  allegedly
conflicts  with  the  FAA,  we  apply  standard  preemption
principles,  asking  whether  the  state  law  frustrates  the
FAA’s purposes and objectives.  If the state rule does so— 
as  the  Court  found  in  AT&T  Mobility—the  Supremacy
Clause  requires  its  invalidation.    We  have  no  earthly 
interest (quite the contrary) in vindicating that law.  Our 
effective-vindication  rule  comes  into  play  only  when  the 
FAA  is  alleged  to  conflict  with  another  federal  law,  like 
the Sherman Act here.  In that all-federal context, one law 
does not automatically bow to the other, and the effective-
vindication  rule  serves  as  a  way  to  reconcile  any  tension
between  them.  Again,  then,  AT&T  Mobility  had  no  occa-
sion  to  address  the  issue  in  this  case.  The  relevant  deci-
sions are instead Mitsubishi and Randolph. 

* 

* 

* 
The Court today mistakes what this case is about.  To a 
hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And to a Court bent 
on diminishing the usefulness of Rule 23, everything looks 
like  a  class  action,  ready  to  be  dismantled.    So  the  Court 
does  not  consider  that  Amex’s  agreement  bars  not  just
class  actions,  but  “other  forms  of  cost-sharing  . . .  that
could  provide  effective  vindication.”  Ante,  at  7,  n. 4.    In 
short, the Court does not consider—and does not decide— 
Italian  Colors’s  (and  similarly  situated  litigants’)  actual