Today, the California Supreme Court granted review in Sanchez v. Valencia Holding Co., no. S199119.
This is the case in which the Court of Appeal declined to enforce a no-class-action arbitration clause notwithstanding Concepcion. Sanchez v. Valencia Holding Co., LLC, 201 Cal.App.4th 74 (2011). The Court of Appeal reasoned that ordinary state-law unconscionability principles were preserved by Concepcion.
As I mentioned in this post last Friday and another post this morning, this reading of Concepcion finds support in two recent Ninth Circuit decisions, Kilgore v. KeyBank, N.A., ___ F.3d ___ (9th Cir. Mar. 7, 2012) and Coneff v. AT&T Corp., ___ F.3d ___ (9th Cir. Mar. 16, 2012).
The docket in Sanchez has not yet been updated to indicate the issues on review.
UPDATE: This is the issue on review, as stated on the docket:
Does the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 2), as interpreted in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (2011) 563 U. S. __, 131 S.Ct. 1740, preempt state law rules invalidating mandatory arbitration provisions in a consumer contract as procedurally and substantively unconscionable?
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