The Alabama Supreme Court has granted a writ of mandamus allowing a group of mobile home owners to submit the issue of class arbitrability to an arbitrator in the manner prescribed by their arbitration agreement.

In Ex parte Johnson, Nos. 1061760, 1061762, 2008 WL 204447 (Ala. Jan. 25, 2008), two groups of mobile home owners demanded class arbitration of their disputes against certain mobile home manufacturers. The manufacturers opposed class arbitration, and asked two separate trial courts to enjoin any class arbitration in favor of individual arbitration of each owner's claims. The trial courts granted the injunctions. On a consolidated appeal, the owners sought a writ of mandamus to set aside the injunctions.

On appeal, the Court observed that trial courts were without authority to determine whether the claims could proceed as a class in arbitration if the underlying arbitration agreement unquestionably reserved the issue to the arbitrator. To the Court, all the arbitration agreements here reserved that power to the arbitrator under the controlling American Arbitration Association (AAA) Commercial Rules.

In particular, the Court noted that Rule 3 of the Supplementary Rules for Class Arbitrations (Class Rules) explicitly states that "the arbitrator shall determine as a threshold matter, in a reasoned, partial final award on the construction of the arbitration clause, whether the applicable arbitration clause permits the arbitration to proceed on behalf of or against a class."

The manufacturers argued that the Class Rules should only apply to the agreements entered after the Class Rules' adoption date, but the Court disagreed, applying AAA Commercial Rule 1(a) and holding that all rules in effect at the date of the demand, not the date of the agreement, were effective.

The manufacturers also argued that the Class Rules were only effective once an arbitrator was appointed, vesting jurisdiction to decide questions of class arbitrability with the court before the appointment. The Court disagreed that appointment was a condition precedent to arbitral jurisdiction, and held that, even if appointment was such a condition, the manufacturers were estopped from asserting this argument because their requested injunctions had actively frustrated any appointment.