Thursday, July 28, 2016

Sandquist v. Lebo Automotive (Cal. Supreme Ct. - July 28, 2016)

You get bonus cash if you can guess the alignment of the justices in today's opinion.

The question is who gets to decide whether or not an arbitration agreement permits classwide arbitration:  the arbitrator, or the court?

The majority opinion says that it's a contractual question, and in the present case, the arbitrator gets to decide.  The dissenting opinion says that it's instead a gateway issue presumptively to be resolved by the court.

Who's on what side?

The answer . . . .

Justice Werdegar writes the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Cantil-Sakayue and Justices Liu and Cuellar.  By contrast, Justice Kruger authors the dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Chin and Corrigan.

Did you get it right?