In Sanchez v. Valencia Holding Co., ___ Cal.App.4th ___ (Oct. 24, 2011) the Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division One) affirmed an order striking down an arbitration clause (which happened to include a class action ban) as unconscionable under Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc., 24 Cal.4th 83 (2000), notwithstanding AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.
Here is the Court's discussion of Concepcion:
Before applying Armendariz to the present case, we note that Concepcion, supra, 131 S.Ct. 1740, does not preclude the application of the Armendariz principles to determine whether an arbitration provision is unconscionable. Concepcion disapproved the “Discover Bank rule,” stating: “In Discover Bank, the California Supreme Court applied [the doctrine of unconscionability] to class-action waivers in arbitration agreements and held as follows: [¶] ‘[W]hen the [class action] waiver is found in a consumer contract of adhesion in a setting in which disputes between the contracting parties predictably involve small amounts of damages, and when it is alleged that the party with the superior bargaining power has carried out a scheme to deliberately cheat large numbers of consumers out of individually small sums of money, then . . . the waiver becomes in practice the exemption of the party “from responsibility for [its] own fraud, or willful injury to the person or property of another.” Under these circumstances, such waivers are unconscionable under California law and should not be enforced.’” (Concepcion, at p. 1746, italics added.) With the exception of the Discover Bank rule, the Court acknowledged that the doctrine of unconscionability is still a basis for invalidating arbitration provisions. (Concepcion, at pp. 1746, 1747; see Kanbar v. O’Melveny & Myers (N.D.Cal. 2011) 2011 U.S. Dist. Lexis 79447, pp. *15–*16, *23–*24, 2011 WL 2940690, pp. *6, *9.) Thus, Concepcion is inapplicable where, as here, we are not concerned with a class action waiver or a judicially imposed procedure that conflicts with the arbitration provision and the purposes of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) (9 U.S.C. §§ 1–16). (See Concepcion, at pp. 1748–1753.)
Slip op. at 11-12. The Court was "not concerned with [the] class action waiver" because it found the whole arbitration clause unconscionable for other reasons.
More discussion of the case can be found at The Complex Litigator and the Bailey Class Action Daily.
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