Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

16 

AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION 

Opinion of the Court 

impact  is  limited  to  the  size  of  individual  disputes,  and 
presumably  outweighed  by  savings  from  avoiding  the 
courts.  But when damages allegedly owed to tens of thou-
sands of potential claimants are aggregated and decided at
once,  the  risk  of  an  error  will  often  become  unacceptable. 
Faced  with  even  a  small  chance  of  a  devastating  loss,
defendants  will  be  pressured  into  settling  questionable
claims.  Other courts have noted the risk of “in terrorem” 
settlements  that  class  actions  entail,  see,  e.g.,  Kohen  v. 
Pacific Inv. Management Co. LLC, 571 F. 3d 672, 677–678 
(CA7 2009), and class arbitration would be no different. 

Arbitration is poorly suited to the higher stakes of class
litigation.  In litigation, a defendant may appeal a certifi-
cation decision on an interlocutory basis and, if unsuccess-
ful, may appeal from a final judgment as well.  Questions 
of law are reviewed de novo and questions of fact for clear 
error.  In contrast, 9 U. S. C. §10 allows a court to vacate
an arbitral award only where the award “was procured by
corruption,  fraud,  or  undue  means”;  “there  was  evident 
partiality or corruption in the arbitrators”; “the arbitrators 
were  guilty  of  misconduct  in  refusing  to  postpone  the
hearing  . . .  or  in  refusing  to  hear  evidence  pertinent  and 
material to the controversy[,] or of any other misbehavior 
by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced”; or
if the “arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly
executed them that a mutual, final, and definite award . . . 
was  not  made.”  The  AAA  rules  do  authorize  judicial  re-
view  of  certification  decisions,  but  this  review  is  unlikely 
to  have  much  effect  given  these  limitations;  review  un-
der  §10  focuses  on  misconduct  rather  than  mistake.    And 
parties  may  not  contractually  expand  the  grounds  or 
nature of judicial review.  Hall Street Assocs., 552 U. S., at 
578.  We find it hard to believe that defendants would bet 
the  company  with  no  effective  means  of  review,  and  even
harder  to  believe  that  Congress  would  have  intended  to