RAC Acceptance East, LLC v. Shannon McBurnie, et al.

In Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, this Court held that state law cannot obstruct enforcement of agreements for individualized arbitration by combining arbitrable requests for individualized relief with nonarbitrable requests for relief on behalf of others into an indivisible claim that is exempt from individual arbitration. 596 U.S. 639, 660 (2023). Here, the plaintiffs pleaded claims for individualized relief and an injunction on behalf of California consumers, challenging a one-time processing fee for contracting with Petitioner. No plaintiff alleged the fee would be incurred again. After the suit was filed, the California Attorney General obtained an injunction against charging California consumers that fee to the extent it exceeds the same statutory limits that plaintiffs here seek to enforce on behalf of the same California consumers. Contrary to Viking River, the Ninth Circuit followed its prior decision in Blair v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., 928 F.3d 819 (9th Cir. 2019), refusing to sever and compel arbitration of requests for individualized relief pleaded as part of the same claim as a request for a public injunction because the agreements stated that a “claim for relief” that cannot be arbitrated individually remains in court. In addition, the court held that because the Attorney General injunction “did not determine” whether the disputed fee is unlawful, “[t]he injunction that plaintiffs seek” would provide different relief and thus was not moot. This petition presents two questions: 1. Whether the Federal Arbitration Act, as interpreted in Viking River, Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, 587 U.S. 176 (2019), and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U.S. 614 (1985), permits