Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-133_19m1.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  570 U. S. ____ (2013) 

13 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

any  arbitration  agreement  operating  as  such  a  waiver  is 
unenforceable.  And  that  requires  courts  to  determine  in 
the  here  and  now—rather  than  in  ye  olde  glory  days—
whether  an  agreement’s  provisions  foreclose  even  merito-
rious antitrust claims. 

Still, the majority takes one last stab: “Truth to tell,” it 
claims,  AT&T  Mobility  LLC  v.  Concepcion,  563  U. S.  ___ 
(2011),  “all  but  resolves  this  case.”    Ante,  at  8.  In  that 
decision,  the  majority  recounts,  this  Court  held  that  the 
FAA  preempted  a  state  “law  conditioning  enforcement  of 
arbitration  on  the  availability  of  class  procedure.”    Ibid.; 
see 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9).  According to the ma-
jority, that decision controls here because “[w]e specifically 
rejected  the  argument  that  class  arbitration  was  neces-
sary.”  Ante, at 9. 

Where  to  begin?    Well,  maybe  where  I  just  left  off:
Italian  Colors  is  not  claiming  that  a  class  action  is
necessary—only that it have some means of vindicating a 
meritorious claim.  And as I have shown, non-class options 
abound.  See  supra,  at  11.    The  idea  that  AT&T  Mobility
controls here depends entirely on the majority’s view that 
this  case  is  “class  action  or  bust.”    Were  the  majority  to
drop  that  pretense,  it  could  make  no  claim  for  AT&T 
Mobility’s relevance. 

And  just  as  this  case  is  not  about  class  actions,  AT&T 
Mobility  was  not—and  could  not  have  been—about  the 
effective-vindication rule.  Here is a tip-off: AT&T Mobility
nowhere  cited  our  effective-vindication  precedents.  That 
was  so  for  two  reasons.    To  begin  with,  the  state  law  in
question  made  class-action  waivers  unenforceable  even 
when  a  party  could  feasibly  vindicate  her  claim  in  an
individual  arbitration.  The  state  rule  was  designed  to
preserve  the  broad-scale  “deterrent  effects  of  class  ac-
tions,”  not  merely  to  protect  a  particular  plaintiff ’s  right 
to assert her own claim.  563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3). 
Indeed,  the  Court  emphasized  that  the  complaint  in  that