Court Opinion

ID: 9431035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:12.154611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.703991
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
Despite the striking similarity between this case and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Ware, 414 U. S. 117 (1973), the Court correctly concludes that the precise question now presented was not decided in Ware. Even though the Arbitration Act had been on the books for almost 50 years in 1973, apparently neither the Court nor the litigants even considered the possibility that the Act had preempted state-created rights. It is only in the last few years that the Court has effectively rewritten the statute to give it a pre-emptive scope that Congress certainly did not intend. See Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1, 18-21 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The dicta in some of these recent cases are admittedly broad enough to cover this case, see ante, at 489-491, but since none of our prior holdings is on point, the doctrine of stare decisis is not controlling. Cf. Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, ante, at 268-269 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Accordingly, because I share *494Justice O’Connor’s opinion that the States’ power to except certain categories of disputes from arbitration should be preserved unless Congress decides otherwise, I would affirm the judgment of the California Court of Appeal.
Justice O’Connor,
dissenting.
The Court today holds that § 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (Act), 9 U. S. C. § 1 et seq., requires the arbitration of appellee’s claim for wages despite clear state policy to the contrary. This Court held in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984), that the Act applies to state court as well as federal court proceedings. Because I continue to believe that this holding was “unfaithful to congressional intent, unnecessary, and in light of the [Act’s] antecedents and the intervening contraction of federal power, inexplicable,” id., at 36 (O’Connor, J., dissenting), I respectfully dissent.
Even if I were not to adhere to my position that the Act is inapplicable to state court proceedings, however, I would still dissent. We have held that Congress can limit or preclude a waiver of a judicial forum, and that Congress’ intent to do so will be deduced from a statute’s text or legislative history, or “from an inherent conflict between arbitration and the statute’s underlying purposes.” Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, ante, at 227. As Justice Stevens has observed, the Court has not explained why state legislatures should not also be able to limit or preclude waiver of a judicial forum:
“We should not refuse to exercise independent judgment concerning the conditions under which an arbitration agreement, generally enforceable under the Act, can be held invalid as contrary to public policy simply because the source of the substantive law to which the arbitration agreement attaches is a State rather than the Federal Government. I find no evidence that Congress intended such a double standard to apply, and I would not lightly impute such an intent to the 1925 Congress *495which enacted the Arbitration Act.” Southland Corp. v. Keating, supra, at 21.
Under the standards we most recently applied in Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, ante, p. 220, there can be little doubt that the California Legislature intended to preclude waiver of a judicial forum; it is clear, moreover, that this intent reflects an important state policy. Section 229 of the California Labor Code specifically provides that actions for the collection of wages may be maintained in the state courts “without regard to the existence of any private agreement to arbitrate.” Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §229 (West 1971). The California Legislature thereby intended “to protect the worker from the exploitative employer who would demand that a prospective employee sign away in advance his right to resort to the judicial system for redress of an employment grievance,” and § 229 has “manifested itself as an important state policy through interpretation by the California courts.” Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith v. Ware, 414 U. S. 117, 131, 132-133 (1973).
In my view, therefore, even if the Act applies to state court proceedings, California’s policy choice to preclude waivers of a judicial forum for wage claims is entitled to respect. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the California Court of Appeal.