In Rent-A-Center v. Jackson, No. 09-497 (Sup. Ct. June 21, 2010), the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether a provision that delegated to an arbitrator the authority to decide whether any portion of an arbitration agreement was void or voidable is enforceable under section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), in a situation in which it was contended that the agreement was unconscionable under Nevada law The Court recognized that it had previously held that parties can agree to arbitrate “gateway” questions of “arbitrability,” such as whether an agreement covers a particular controversy. The Court further recognized that there were two types of challenges to the validity of an agreement under section 2 of the FAA: (1) challenges to an agreement to arbitrate itself; and (2) challenges to the contract containing the arbitration agreement as a whole, “either on a ground that directly affects the entire agreement (e.g., the agreement was fraudulently induced), or on the ground that the illegality of one of the contract’s provisions renders the whole contract invalid.” Only the first type of challenge is relevant to a court’s determination whether the arbitration agreement is enforceable. Since an arbitration provision is severable from the remainder of the contract, a challenge must be specifically directed to the arbitration provision in order for the court to intervene. Since the challenge here was to the contract as a whole, rather than specifically directed to the arbitration provision at issue, the arbitration provision was enforceable, and the arbitrator had the authority to determine the issue of unconscionability.
This post written by Michael Wolgin.