Whether ERISA-claims can be compelled to individual-arbitration

QUESTION PRESENTED The question presented in this case is whether a participant in a plan governed by ERISA who asserts statutory claims under that statute can be compelled, pursuant to a binding arbitration provision, to submit his claims to individual arbitration. On several past occasions, parties have asked this Court to invalidate binding arbitration provisions as contrary to various federal laws or policies. Rights enshrined in those other statutes, parties claimed, could not be vindicated if parties were required to submit to individual arbitration. But in each instance this Court has made clear that the FAA requires that arbitration clauses be enforced, unless another federal statute evinces a clear intention by Congress to override the FAA’s commands. The Ninth Circuit has enforced individual arbitration of ERISA claims, while three circuits—the Seventh Circuit, the Tenth Circuit in this case, and the Third Circuit in a more recent decision—created a split by reaching the opposite conclusion. The Court should grant this petition to review and reverse the Tenth Circuit’s decision below and answer the important federal question presented here in the affirmative: Nothing in ERISA precludes individual arbitration.