Opinion ID: 3064563
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Enforceability and Severability

Text: [10] The substantively unconscionable class action waiver here was contained in a contract of adhesion reflecting the parties’ unequal bargaining power. To be certain, Plaintiffs did not experience the oppression and surprise evident in Vasquez-Lopez. See 152 P.3d at 943 (noting that plaintiffs could not read the contract they signed and were misled as to the contract’s provisions). Nonetheless, the contract here was adhesive, and Plaintiffs were unable to negotiate with T- Mobile over its terms. Under Vasquez-Lopez, this combination of unequal bargaining power and clearly demonstrated substantive unconscionability—the only absolute necessity for a finding of unenforceability—is sufficient to render the class action waiver unenforceable as a matter of Oregon law. [11] In the usual case, we would be required to determine whether the unenforceable class action waiver should be severed from the arbitration agreement as a whole. See OR. REV. STAT. § 72.3020 (“If the court as a matter of law finds the contract or any clause of the contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made the court may refuse to enforce the contract, or it may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable clause, or it may so limit the 3750 CHALK v. T-MOBILE USA application of any unconscionable clause as to avoid any unconscionable result.”); Vasquez-Lopez, 152 P.3d at 953 (after a finding of unconscionability, “the trial court could have severed the unconscionable provisions or declared the entire [arbitration] rider to be unenforcable”). However, in the present case the arbitration agreement itself includes a provision prohibiting severance of the class action waiver. Therefore, in accordance with its severability clause, the arbitration agreement as a whole is unenforceable. See Shroyer, 498 F.3d at 986-87.8