Rent-a-Center West, Inc. v. Jackson

Rent-A-Center concerned whether an arbitration agreement that delegated questions of arbitrability to an arbitrator, including the issue of the enforceability of the arbitration agreement itself, required a plaintiff who contended that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable to arbitrate that claim. PCLG assisted in preparing the brief of the plaintiff-respondent in the Supreme Court, arguing that a court could not enforce the arbitration agreement without first addressing the respondent’s claim that the agreement was unconscionable. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the respondent, holding that the delegation clause must be treated as a separate agreement to arbitrate questions of arbitrability, and that a court must enforce it to require arbitration of issues going to the unconscionability of the broader arbitration agreement unless it found that the delegation clause itself was unconscionable.