Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

12 

AT&T MOBILITY LLC v. CONCEPCION 

Opinion of the Court 

rule, we said, would “at the least, hinder speedy resolution 
of the controversy.”  Id., at 358.5
  California’s Discover Bank rule similarly interferes with
arbitration.  Although the rule does not require classwide 
arbitration,  it  allows  any  party  to  a  consumer  contract  to
demand  it  ex  post.    The  rule  is  limited  to  adhesion  con-
tracts,  Discover Bank,  36 Cal. 4th, at 162–163, 113 P. 3d, 
at  1110,  but  the  times  in  which  consumer  contracts  were 
anything other than adhesive are long past.6  Carbajal  v. 
H&R  Block  Tax  Servs.,  Inc.,  372  F. 3d  903,  906  (CA7 
2004); see also Hill v. Gateway 2000, Inc., 105 F. 3d 1147, 
1149 (CA7 1997).  The rule also requires that damages be 
predictably small, and that the consumer allege a scheme 
to  cheat  consumers.    Discover  Bank,  supra,  at  162–163, 
113  P. 3d,  at  1110.    The  former  requirement,  however,  is 

—————— 

5 Relying  upon  nothing  more  indicative  of  congressional  understand-
ing  than  statements  of  witnesses  in  committee  hearings  and  a  press 
release of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the dissent suggests 
that Congress “thought that arbitration would be used primarily where 
merchants sought to resolve disputes of fact . . . [and] possessed roughly 
equivalent  bargaining  power.”    Post,  at  6.  Such  a  limitation  appears
nowhere in the text of the FAA and has been explicitly rejected by our 
cases.    “Relationships  between  securities  dealers  and  investors,  for 
example, may involve unequal bargaining power, but we [have] never-
theless  held  . . .  that  agreements  to  arbitrate  in  that  context  are  en-
forceable.”  Gilmer  v.  Interstate/Johnson  Lane  Corp.,  500  U. S.  20,  33 
(1991);  see  also  id.,  at  32–33  (allowing  arbitration  of  claims  arising 
under  the  Age  Discrimination  in  Employment  Act  of  1967  despite
allegations  of  unequal  bargaining  power  between  employers  and 
employees).  Of  course  the  dissent’s  disquisition  on  legislative  history
fails to note that it contains nothing—not even the testimony of a stray
witness  in  committee  hearings—that  contemplates  the  existence  of 
class arbitration. 

6 Of  course  States  remain  free  to  take  steps  addressing  the  concerns 
that attend contracts of adhesion—for example, requiring class-action-
waiver provisions in adhesive agreements to be highlighted.  Such steps 
cannot,  however,  conflict  with  the  FAA  or  frustrate  its  purpose  to
ensure  that  private  arbitration  agreements  are  enforced  according  to
their terms.