Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-133_19m1.pdf
Page Number: 11

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

attributes of arbitration.”  563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9). 
“[T]he switch from bilateral to class arbitration,” we said,
“sacrifices  the  principal  advantage  of  arbitration—its
informality—and  makes  the  process  slower,  more  costly,
and  more  likely  to  generate  procedural  morass  than  final 
judgment.”  Id.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  14).    We  specifically 
rejected the argument that class arbitration was necessary
to prosecute claims “that might otherwise slip through the 
legal system.”  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17).5 

* 

* 

* 
The regime established by the Court of Appeals’ decision 
would require—before a plaintiff can be held to contractu-
ally  agreed  bilateral  arbitration—that  a  federal  court
determine (and the parties litigate) the legal requirements 
for  success  on  the  merits  claim-by-claim  and  theory-by-
theory,  the  evidence  necessary  to  meet  those  requirements, 
the  cost  of  developing  that  evidence,  and  the  damages 
that  would  be  recovered  in  the  event  of  success.    Such  a 
preliminary  litigating  hurdle  would  undoubtedly  destroy 
the  prospect  of  speedy  resolution  that  arbitration  in  gen-
eral  and  bilateral  arbitration  in  particular  was  meant  to 
secure.  The FAA does not sanction such a judicially created 
superstructure. 

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. 

—————— 

5 In  dismissing  AT&T  Mobility  as  a  case  involving  pre-emption  and
not  the  effective-vindication  exception,  the  dissent  ignores  what  that
case  established—that  the  FAA’s  command  to  enforce  arbitration 
agreements  trumps  any  interest  in  ensuring  the  prosecution  of  low-
value  claims.    The  latter  interest,  we  said,  is  “unrelated”  to  the  FAA. 
563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17).  Accordingly, the FAA does, contrary 
to the dissent’s assertion, see post, at 5, favor the absence of litigation
when that is the consequence of a class-action waiver, since its “ ‘princi-
pal purpose’ ” is the enforcement of arbitration agreements according to
their  terms.  563  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  9–10)  (quoting  Volt  Infor-
mation  Sciences,  Inc.  v.  Board  of  Trustees  of  Leland  Stanford  Junior 
Univ., 489 U. S. 468, 487 (1989)).