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Cite as:  586 U. S. ____ (2019) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington,  D. C.  20543,  of  any  typographical  or  other  formal  errors,  in  order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 17–1272 
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HENRY SCHEIN, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. 
ARCHER AND WHITE SALES, INC. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT 

[January 8, 2019]

 JUSTICE KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court. 
Under the Federal Arbitration Act, parties to a contract
may  agree  that  an  arbitrator  rather  than  a  court  will 
resolve  disputes  arising  out  of  the  contract.  When  a  dis-
pute  arises,  the  parties  sometimes  may  disagree  not  only
about the merits of the dispute but also about the thresh-
old  arbitrability  question—that  is,  whether  their  arbitra-
tion  agreement  applies  to  the  particular  dispute.    Who 
decides  that  threshold  arbitrability  question?    Under  the 
Act  and  this  Court’s  cases,  the  question  of  who  decides 
arbitrability is itself a question of contract.  The Act allows 
parties to agree by contract that an arbitrator, rather than
a  court,  will  resolve  threshold  arbitrability  questions  as
well  as  underlying  merits  disputes.  Rent-A-Center,  West, 
Inc.  v.  Jackson,  561  U. S.  63,  68−70  (2010);  First  Options 
of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, 514 U. S. 938, 943−944 (1995).

Even  when  a  contract  delegates  the  arbitrability  ques-
tion to an arbitrator, some federal courts nonetheless will 
short-circuit the process and decide the arbitrability ques-
tion  themselves  if  the  argument  that  the  arbitration 
agreement  applies  to  the  particular  dispute  is  “wholly