Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-133_19m1.pdf
Page Number: 22

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

9 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

we  provided  a  standard  for  applying  the  rule  when  a
claimant alleges “prohibitive costs” (“Where, as here,” etc., 
see supra, at 5), and we then applied that standard to the
parties  before  us.  So  whatever  else  the  majority  might 
think of the effective-vindication rule, it is not dictum. 

The next paragraph of the Court’s decision (the third of 
Part  IV)  is  the  key:  It  contains  almost  the  whole  of  the 
majority’s  effort  to  explain  why  the  effective-vindication 
rule does not stop Amex from compelling arbitration.  The 
majority’s  first  move  is  to  describe  Mitsubishi  and  Ran-
dolph  as  covering  only  discrete  situations:  The  rule,  the
majority  asserts,  applies  to  arbitration  agreements  that
eliminate  the  “right  to  pursue  statutory  remedies”  by
“forbidding  the  assertion”  of  the  right  (as  addressed  in 
Mitsubishi)  or imposing filing and administrative fees “so
high  as  to  make  access  to  the  forum  impracticable”  (as 
addressed  in  Randolph).  Ante,  at  6  (emphasis  deleted; 
internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Those  cases  are  not 
this  case,  the  majority  says:  Here,  the  agreement’s  provi-
sions  went  to  the  possibility  of  “proving  a  statutory  rem-
edy.”  Ante, at 7. 

But the distinction the majority proffers, which excludes 
problems  of  proof,  is  one  Mitsubishi  and  Randolph  (and
our decisions reaffirming them) foreclose.  Those decisions 
establish  what  in  some  quarters  is  known  as  a  principle: 
When  an  arbitration  agreement  prevents  the  effective 
vindication  of  federal  rights,  a  party  may  go  to  court.
That  principle,  by  its  nature,  operates  in  diverse  circum-
stances—not just the ones that happened to come before the
Court.  See  supra,  at  3–4.    It  doubtless  covers  the  baldly
exculpatory  clause  and  prohibitive  fees  that  the  majority 
acknowledges  would  preclude  an  arbitration  agreement’s
enforcement.  But so too it covers the world of other provi-
sions a clever drafter might devise to scuttle even the most 

—————— 

we would invalidate it.  Ibid.; see supra, at 4.