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Page Number: 20.0

16 

VIKING RIVER CRUISES, INC. v. MORIANA 

Opinion of the Court 

ers of representative capacity as a categorical rule.  Requir-
ing  parties  to  decide  whether  to  arbitrate  or  litigate  a 
single-agent,  single-principal  action  does  not  produce  a 
shift  from  a  situation  in  which  the  arbitrator  must  “re-
solv[e]  a  single  dispute  between  the  parties  to  a  single
agreement” to one in which he or she must “resolv[e] many
disputes  between  hundreds  or  perhaps  even  thousands  of 
parties.” Stolt-Nielsen, 559 U. S., at 686.  And a proceeding 
in which two and only two parties arbitrate exclusively in
their individual capacities is not the only thing one might
mean by “bilateral arbitration.”  As we have said, “[t]he la-
bel ‘party’ does not indicate an absolute characteristic, but 
rather a conclusion about the applicability of various proce-
dural rules that may differ based on context.” Devlin, 536 
U. S., at 10.  Our precedents use the phrase “bilateral arbi-
tration” in opposition to “class or collective” arbitration, and
the problems we have identified in mandatory class arbitra-
tion arise from procedures characteristic of multiparty rep-
resentative  actions.  Epic  Systems,  584  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip 
op., at 24); see also Italian Colors, 570 U. S., at 238; Con-
cepcion, 563 U. S., at 347–349; Stolt-Nielsen, 559 U. S., at 
685–686.  Unlike  these  kinds  of  actions,  single-principal,
single-agent  representative  actions  are  “bilateral”  in  two
registers:  They  involve  the  rights  of  only  the  absent  real 
party in interest and the defendant, and litigation need only 
be conducted by the agent-plaintiff and the defendant.  This 
degree of deviation from bilateral norms is not alien to tra-
ditional  arbitral  practice,7  and  our  precedents  have  never 
suggested otherwise.  See, e.g., Marmet Health Care Center, 
Inc. v. Brown, 565 U. S. 530 (2012) (per curiam) (invalidat-
ing rule categorically barring arbitration of wrongful-death
actions). 
—————— 

7 For example, close corporations have included arbitration clauses in 
negotiated  shareholder  agreements  for  many  decades.   See,  e.g.,  In re 
Carl, 263 App. Div. 887, 32 N. Y. S. 2d 410 (1942); Lumsden v. Lumsden 
Bros. & Taylor Inc., 242 App. Div. 852, 257 N. Y. S. 221 (1934).