Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela

Lamps Plus Inc. et al., v. Frank Varela
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 29, 2018 Decided April 24, 2019
Full case name	Lamps Plus Inc. et al., Petitioners v. Frank Varela
Docket no.	17-988
Citations	587 U.S. (more) 139 S. Ct. 1407; 203 L. Ed. 2d 636
Case history
Prior	559 U.S. 662
Holding
Class arbitration procedures could not be compelled based on ambiguous language in the arbitration agreement.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Majority	Roberts, joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh
Concurrence	Thomas
Dissent	Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor
Dissent	Breyer
Dissent	Sotomayor
Dissent	Kagan, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer; Sotomayor (Part II)
Laws applied
Federal Arbitration Act

Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the use of class arbitration proceedings. In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision and held that arbitration on a classwide basis could not be compelled based on the provision’s ambiguous language.^[1] The Court relied on its previous decision in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp. which held that class arbitration procedures could not be compelled without indication that the parties to the arbitration had agreed to these procedures.^[2]