Supreme Court Confirms Arbitrators Decide Threshold Issues

On January 8, 2019, the United States Supreme Court held that the “wholly groundless” exception to arbitrators’ powers to decide questions of arbitrability otherwise contractually committed to them that had been developed by some federal courts is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act.

The Court held that where an arbitration agreement delegates questions of arbitrability to an arbitrator, a court may not override the agreement, even if it determines that the claim that the dispute is subject to arbitration is “wholly groundless.”