First Options v. Kaplan

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

514 U.S. 938

First Options v. Kaplan

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the third circuit

No. 94-560. Argued March 22, 1995 — Decided May 22, 1995

This case arose out of disputes centered on a "workout" agreement, embodied in four documents, which governs the "working out" of debts owed by respondents—Manuel Kaplan, his wife, and his wholly owned investment company, MK Investments, Inc. (MKI)--to petitioner First Options of Chicago, Inc., a firm that clears stock trades on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. When First Options' demands for payment went unsatisfied, it sought arbitration by a stock exchange panel. MKI, which had signed the only workout document containing an arbitration agreement, submitted to arbitration, but the Kaplans, who had not signed that document, filed objections with the panel, denying that their disagreement with First Options was arbitrable. The arbitrators decided that they had the power to rule on the dispute's merits and ruled in First Options' favor. The District Court confirmed the award, but the Court of Appeals reversed. In finding that the dispute was not arbitrable, the Court of Appeals said that courts should independently decide whether an arbitration panel has jurisdiction over a dispute, and that it would apply ordinary standards of review when considering the District Court's denial of respondents' motion to vacate the arbitration award.

Held:

1. The arbitrability of the Kaplan/First Options dispute was subject to independent review by the courts. Pp. 3-9.

(a) The answer to the narrow question whether the arbitrators or the courts have the primary power to decide whether the parties agreed to arbitrate a dispute's merits is fairly simple. Just as the arbitrability of the merits of a dispute depends upon whether the parties agreed to arbitrate that dispute, see, e.g., Mastrobuono v. Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc., 514 U. S. ___, ___, so the question "who has the primary power to decide arbitrability" turns upon whether the parties agreed to submit that question to arbitration. If so, then the court should defer to the arbitrator's arbitrability decision. If not, then the court should decide the question independently. These two answers flow inexorably from the fact that arbitration is simply a matter of contract between the parties. Pp. 3-5.

(b) The Kaplans did not agree to arbitrate arbitrability. Courts generally should apply ordinary state law principles governing contract formation in deciding whether such an agreement exists. However, courts should not assume that the parties agreed to arbitrate arbitrability unless there is "clea[r] and unmistakabl[e]" evidence that they did so. See, e.g., AT&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers,  475 U.S. 643, 649. First Options cannot show a clear agreement on the part of the Kaplans. The Kaplans' objections to the arbitrators' jurisdiction indicate that they did not want the arbitrators to have binding authority over them. This conclusion is supported by (1) an obvious explanation for their presence before the arbitrators (i.e., Mr. Kaplan's wholly owned firm was arbitrating workout agreement matters); and (2) Third Circuit law, which suggested that they might argue arbitrability to the arbitrators without losing their right to independent court review. First Options' counter arguments are unpersuasive. Pp. 5-9.

2. Courts of appeals should apply ordinary standards when reviewing district court decisions upholding arbitration awards, i.e., accepting findings of fact that are not "clearly erroneous" but deciding questions of law de novo; they should not, in those circumstances, apply a special "abuse of discretion" standard. It is undesirable to make the law more complicated by proliferating special review standards without good reason. More importantly, a court of appeals' reviewing attitude toward a district court decision should depend upon the respective institutional advantages of trial and appellate courts, not upon what standard of review will more likely produce a particular substantive result. Nothing in the Arbitration Act supports First Options' claim that a court of appeals should use a different standard when conducting review of certain district court decisions. Pp. 9-10.

3. The fact bound question whether the Court of Appeals erred in its ultimate conclusion that the dispute was not arbitrable is beyond the scope of the questions this Court agreed to review. P. 11.

19 F. 3d 1503, affirmed.

Breyer, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.