Employment Arbitration: Supremes Deal a Blow to Clarity
Prima Paint teaches that the arbitration agreement nestled in a commercial contract has a legal validity of its own, and that once a court determines that the “nestled” agreement to arbitrate is enforceable, then the arbitrator and not the court shall determine the enforceability of the rest of the contract.
The interesting thing about the arbitration agreement in Rent-a-Car, West v. Jackson is that there wasn’t anything for the arbitration agreement to nestle into. The document evidenced only an agreement to arbitrate. Other terms of any commercial agreement between Jackson and his employer were set forth elsewhere. This was just a “Mutual Agreement to Arbitrate Claims.”
So when Jackson was prompted to sue his employer for racial discrimination, the federal district court didn’t have an arbitration agreement to sever from the rest of the contract. It had only the agreement to arbitrate itself, in all its lonely glory.
Which Jackson said was unconscionable because it was thrust upon him and unfairly limited his ability to vindicate his statutory rights.
And which provided that questions of unconscionability were to be decided by (guess who?) the arbitrator, not the court. Take that, Prima Paint.

