Third Circuit in Chesapeake Appalachia: Incorporating AAA Rules Not Enough to Satisfy the Onerous Burden of Overcoming Presumption in Favor of Judicial Resolution of Class Arbitrability
In Chesapeake Appalachia, L.L.C. v. Scout Petroleum, L.L.C., the Third Circuit picked up where it left off after Opalinski v. Robert Half International Inc. In Opalinski, the Circuit held, for the first time, that “the availability of class arbitration constitutes a ‘question of arbitrability’ to be decided by the courts—and not the arbitrators—unless the parties’ arbitration agreement ‘clearly and unmistakably’ provides otherwise.”