BARKETT, Circuit Judge:
Branch Banking & Trust Company ("BB&T"), a commercial bank, appeals the denial of its motion to compel arbitration of a putative class action brought by Lacy Barras, a customer of BB&T. Barras alleged in her complaint on behalf of herself and the class she seeks to represent that BB&T charged her and charges others overdraft fees for payments from checking accounts even when the account contains sufficient funds to cover the payments. She also alleges that BB&T supplies inaccurate and misleading information about account balances, and fails to notify customers about changes to BB&T's policies for processing checking account transactions, thereby increasing overdraft charges assessed against BB&T customers.
Barras asserts claims under the North Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act for unfair and deceptive trade practices, breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and unconscionability, and seeks to certify a class of BB&T account holders who were likewise charged allegedly inflated overdraft fees on their checking accounts.
BB&T moved to compel arbitration of all of Barras's claims under 9 U.S.C. §§ 3
On remand, BB&T renewed its motion to compel arbitration. The district court
The BSA provides both parties a right to submit to arbitration "[a]ny claim or dispute (`Claim') ... arising from or relating in any way to [Barras's] account, this Agreement, or any transaction conducted with the Bank or any of its affiliates." The "Claims" referred to "include Claims regarding the applicability of this provision or the validity of this or any prior agreement." BB&T first argues that, pursuant to this "delegation clause," the threshold issue of whether the arbitration provision is unenforceable because of the alleged unconscionability of the cost-and-fee-shifting provision should have been submitted to arbitration.
The district court determined that BB&T has waived its right to arbitrate the threshold issue of unconscionability. The district court based its conclusion on the fact that over a year prior, BB&T asked the district court to determine the question in its original motion to compel arbitration, and failed to move the court to allow an arbitrator to determine the unconscionability of the provision. Because Barras had incurred the expense of opposing the original motion as well as on appeal to this Court, the district court refused to allow BB&T to argue for the first time on remand that the arbitrator should determine the issue.
Notwithstanding that BB&T had already litigated this issue before the district court for over a year, BB&T argues that Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2772, 177 L.Ed.2d 403 (2010), required the district court to submit the issue of enforceability to the arbitrator. We find this case inapplicable. The question of waiver was not before the Supreme Court in Rent-A-Center, as the defendant seeking arbitration in Rent-A-Center, unlike BB&T, argued consistently that this issue was assigned by agreement to the arbitrator. See 130 S.Ct. at 2775. In contrast, BB&T litigated its case for over a year without moving the district court to submit the threshold issue of enforceability to the arbitrator; rather, it asked the district court to hold that the arbitration agreement was enforceable. Accordingly, we cannot say that the district
Because we find that the district court did not err in refusing to submit the question of unconscionability to the arbitrator, we must now turn to the district court's substantive rulings on: (1) whether the cost-and-fee-shifting provision applies to the arbitration provision; and (2) if so, whether the FAA preempts South Carolina's doctrine of unconscionability.
BB&T argues that the cost-and-fee-shifting provision does not apply to arbitration because the arbitration provision dictates that any arbitration under the BSA will be conducted according to a body of rules promulgated by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"). Because the AAA rules include provisions pertaining to costs, BB&T argues these rules regarding costs must be deemed as the only ones applicable to arbitration.
However, the BSA also dictates the costs and fees allowable as a result of "any dispute" with Barras involving her bank account. The cost-and-fee-shifting provision provides, in relevant part:
Under South Carolina law,
According to the plain language of the BSA's cost-and-fee-shifting provision, that provision unambiguously requires Barras to bear "any loss, costs, or expenses ... that the Bank incurs as a result of any dispute involving [Barras's] account." The plain language applies the cost-and-fee-shifting provision to arbitration, as arbitration is a type of "dispute," and the broad language of the provision contains no limitation that would otherwise prevent its application to arbitration. See Schulmeyer, 579 S.E.2d at 134. Moreover, "giv[ing] effect to the whole instrument and to each of its various parts and provisions" requires us to interpret the arbitration provision and cost-and-fee-shifting provision as capable of operating in tandem and allowing BB&T to invoke its contractual cost-and-fee-shifting
Notwithstanding that the district court found the arbitration clause unconscionable, BB&T argues that, under Concepcion, the FAA preempts application of South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine to the arbitration provision in the BSA. Barras argues that although the FAA requires that "[a] written provision in any... contract ... to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract ... shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable," it permits arbitration agreements to be invalidated "upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." 9 U.S.C. § 2 (2006) (emphasis added). The question, then, is whether a determination that the relevant written provision here is unenforceable because it is unconscionable is a "ground[]" that "exist[s] at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract" in South Carolina. Id.
In Concepcion, the Supreme Court held that § 2 of the FAA prohibits the invalidation of an arbitration agreement according to a state law that made contractual waivers of class-wide arbitration unenforceable. See 131 S.Ct. at 1753. The Court reasoned that, by requiring class-wide arbitration in instances where contracting parties had agreed only to individual arbitration, the state law increased the procedural complexity of any arbitration proceeding that occurred between the parties. See id. at 1751. The Court held that this feature of class-wide arbitration was inconsistent with the procedural flexibility and informality of individual arbitration. See id. In addition, the Court noted that class-wide arbitrations typically produce larger awards than individual arbitrations and that the FAA permits only limited review of arbitration awards. See id. at 1752. The Court held that this feature of class-wide arbitration conflicted with the degree of risk assumed by the defendant in entering into an arbitration agreement providing for only individual arbitration
Although Concepcion held that the state law at issue was preempted, it made clear that there are instances wherein a state law may invalidate an arbitration agreement without being preempted by the FAA. Indeed, the phrase "save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract" in § 2 must have meaning. 9 U.S.C. § 2 (2006) (emphasis added). Concepcion affirmed that, under this "savings clause" of § 2, "generally applicable contract defenses" provided by state law "such as fraud, duress, or unconscionability" are not preempted by the FAA. Concepcion, 131 S.Ct. at 1746. Thus, although arbitration agreements may not be singled out for unfavorable treatment, see Doctor's Assocs., Inc. v. Casarotto, 517 U.S. 681, 687, 116 S.Ct. 1652, 134 L.Ed.2d 902 (1996), "[l]ike other contracts ... they may be invalidated by generally applicable contract defenses, such as fraud, duress, or unconscionability," Rent-A-Center, 130 S.Ct. at 2776 (internal quotation marks omitted). After Concepcion, we have stated that "generally applicable contract defenses" that challenge "defects in the making of the arbitration agreement" and that "do not apply only to arbitration or derive their meaning from the fact that an agreement to arbitrate is at issue" are "not affected by [Concepcion]." Cmty. State Bank v. Strong, 651 F.3d 1241, 1267, 1267 n. 28 (11th Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted).
Accordingly, in light of Concepcion, we must determine whether South Carolina's doctrine of unconscionability is a "generally applicable contract defense[]" permitted by § 2 of the FAA, 131 S.Ct. at 1746, or whether it necessarily "interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration" to the degree that it "creates a scheme inconsistent with the FAA," like the ban on collective-action waivers in Concepcion, id. at 1748.
Unlike the state law in Concepcion that was "applied in a fashion that disfavors arbitration" due to its provisions requiring class-wide as opposed to individual arbitration proceedings, id. at 1747, South Carolina's doctrine of unconscionability applies to arbitration and to other agreements according to the same basic criteria, and these criteria do not disproportionately impact arbitration agreements.
South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine is also unlike the collective-action-waiver rule in Concepcion because it does not interfere with the procedural informality that Concepcion recognized as the "principal advantage of arbitration." Id. at 1751. South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine determines enforceability of an agreement not by whether it includes procedures that are inconsistent with arbitration's informality, but by examining the one-sidedness of its provisions and the circumstances in which it was formed. See Carolina Care, 606 S.E.2d at 757 (determining unconscionability with regard to the "absence of meaningful choice" on the part of one party to the agreement and "oppressive" contractual terms). Moreover, because an agreement can be held unconscionable under South Carolina law only if the process of contract formation is determined to have been flawed, South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine is one that is concerned with defects in the process of contract formation.
Moreover, unlike California's collective-action-waiver rule, which the Supreme Court noted was used by California courts as a vehicle for "judicial hostility towards arbitration," id. at 1747; see id. (citing law review articles discussing application of the waiver rule to arbitration agreements by California courts), South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine is not "applied in a fashion that disfavors arbitration" by courts in South Carolina, see id. Instead,
For all of the foregoing reasons, we conclude that South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine does not "interfere[] with fundamental attributes of arbitration" as identified by the Supreme Court, see id. at 1748, and is among the "generally applicable contract defenses" that apply to arbitration agreements under the savings clause of 9 U.S.C. § 2, see id. at 1746. Therefore, South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine is not preempted by the FAA in its application to arbitration agreements.
Because we reach this conclusion, we next address whether the arbitration agreement embodied in the BSA is unconscionable under South Carolina law.
BB&T argues that the district court erred in determining that the cost-and-fee-shifting provision in its agreement with Barras is unconscionable. For an agreement to be unconscionable under South Carolina law, the agreement must involve both an "absence of meaningful choice on the part of one party due to one-sided contract provisions," and "terms that are so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them." Simpson, 644 S.E.2d at 668. In considering the first element of this analysis — whether Barras lacked a meaningful choice in agreeing to the BSA — we must evaluate
Herron, 693 S.E.2d at 398; accord Simpson, 644 S.E.2d at 669.
Applying this analysis, we find the last two factors — whether there is an element of surprise and the conspicuousness of the clause — weigh heavily in favor of concluding Barras lacked a meaningful choice in agreeing to the provision.
The second element of unconscionability is established if the challenged contract includes "terms that are so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them." Simpson, 644 S.E.2d at 668. Whereas the first element of unconscionability considers the circumstances surrounding formation of the contract, this second element
8 Richard A. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 18:10 (4th ed. 2001).
According to the plain language of the BSA's cost-and-fee-shifting provision, this provision may be invoked to force Barras to pay BB&T's costs of arbitration regardless of whether BB&T prevails in the dispute.
The unconditional cost-and-fee-shifting provision further negates reasonable expectations of the non-drafting contractual party because a consumer reasonably relying on the plain language of the arbitration provision would understand that her liability for the arbitration costs and expenses would be limited according to the American Arbitration Association rules referenced therein.
Given these features of the cost-and-fee-shifting provision, we conclude that the terms of this provision allowing BB&T, and only BB&T, to recover "any loss, costs, or expenses" arising from "any dispute" with Barras, regardless of the outcome of the dispute, are "so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them." Id. Barras has therefore satisfied the second element of South Carolina's unconscionability doctrine. See id.
Having determined that the cost-and-fee-shifting provision is unconscionable and unenforceable as written under South
We need not decide whether BB&T waived its contractual right to enforce the arbitration provision's severability clause because under South Carolina law, "[i]f a court as a matter of law finds any clause of a contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made, the court may refuse to enforce the unconscionable clause, or so limit its application so as to avoid any unconscionable result." Simpson, 644 S.E.2d at 668; accord Herron, 693 S.E.2d at 397; see also Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 208 cmt. g (1981) ("Where a term rather than the entire contract is unconscionable, the appropriate remedy is ordinarily to deny effect to the unconscionable term."). Thus, even if Barras were correct that BB&T had waived its contractual right in the severability provision, a question we do not decide, South Carolina law still would permit us to "limit the application" of the cost-and-fee-shifting provision. See Anders v. Hometown Mortg. Servs., Inc., 346 F.3d 1024, 1032 (11th Cir.2003) (stating that whether a severability provision in an arbitration agreement "is to be given effect is a question of state law").
One term of a contract may be voided without also invalidating another provision when the two provisions are "not necessarily dependent upon each other, nor is it intended by the parties that they shall be." Columbia Architectural Group, Inc. v. Barker, 274 S.C. 639, 266 S.E.2d 428, 429 (1980) (internal quotation marks omitted). The arbitration provision contained in the BSA is capable of operating independently of the unconscionable cost-and-fee-shifting provision because the arbitration provision incorporates rules promulgated by the American Arbitration Association that govern all aspects of an arbitration proceeding, including the apportionment of costs. These rules operate wholly independently of the cost-and-fee-shifting provision and would not be impaired by invalidating the cost-and-fee-shifting provision. Thus, the cost-and-fee-shifting provision does not "pervade[] the arbitration agreement" such that enforcing the arbitration provision without the cost-and-fee-shifting provision would be impossible or would render the arbitration provision ineffectual. See Simpson, 644 S.E.2d at 673. Further, the fact that the arbitration provision and the unconditional cost-and-fee-shifting provision are located in entirely separate portions of the contract and that the arbitration provision makes no reference to the other provision provides further evidence that the parties intended them to be capable of operating independently of each other. Accordingly, we conclude that the unenforceable cost-and-fee-shifting provision is severable from the arbitration provision, and the invalidity of that provision does not affect the arbitration provision. See id. at 668 (permitting court to "limit [the] application" of an unconscionable contract provision "so as to avoid any unconscionable result").