- Court: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Archives
- Area(s) of Law: Arbitration
- Date Filed: 03-20-2014
- Case #: 11-56520; 11-57182; 11-57183; 11-57184
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Circuit Judge Hurwitz for the Court; Circuit Judges Kleinfeld and Silverman
- Full Text Opinion
In 2011 multiple individuals filed class action lawsuits against consumerinfo.com in the Central District of California. The class action suits allege that consumerinfo.com violated multiple consumer protection laws of California. Each of the individuals had purchased a credit report monitoring program from consumerinfo.com. The purchase of which included a clause for mandatory arbitration of all claims and disputes. The district court stayed the actions to compel individual arbitration of each claim. One of the plaintiffs filed a motion for 28 U.S.C. §1292(b) certification which the district court denied. The Ninth Circuit found, relying on 9 U.S.C. §16(b), that an appeal from an interlocutory order to compel arbitration and stay proceedings is barred. Plaintiffs argued that §16(a)(3) allows for immediate appeal of “final” decision and that the district court’s order was collateral and thus final. The panel disagreed and held that §16(b) barred appeal regardless of whether the order was collateral or not. The panel further held that §1292(b) is the sole route for immediate appeal of an order to stay proceedings. Lastly, the panel held that §16(b) did not preclude mandamus relief but it is an extraordinary remedy that the plaintiffs did not merit. DISMISSED and petition for writ of mandamus DENIED.