Lead Opinion
In this appeal, we are called on to decide whether a provision of the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law which has the effect of negating an otherwise valid arbitration clause in a securities brokerage contract is preempted by Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 3, which requires that “[i]f any suit or proceeding be brought in any of the courts of the United States upon any issue referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing for such arbitration, the court ... shall ... stay the trial of the action until such arbitration has been had .... ” Because this is a clear case of “actual conflict” between federal and state law as a result of which compliance with both is a “physical impossibility,” Florida Lime and Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul,
I.
Plaintiff-appellee originally commenced this action in the County Court for Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, seeking to recover losses in her securities brokerage account allegedly caused by defendants-appellees’ conduct in violation of the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law and in violation of the common law. The first cause of action alleged that defendant Mait, as an “agent,” bought and sold securities in Wisconsin in violation of the registration requirements contained in the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law, Wise.Stat. §§ 551.31(1) and (2), 551.59(1). The second claim alleged that, because Mait was not properly registered, the brokerage contract between the parties was void and subject to rescission. The remaining three causes of action alleged defendants’ liability under the common law theories of mismanagement, unsuitable purchases, excessive trading, and breach of fiduciary duty.
Defendants removed the action to federal district court on the basis of diversity. Af-
Any controversy between us arising out of or relating to this contract or the breach thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the rules, then obtaining, of either the Arbitration Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, National Association of Securities Dealers or where appropriate, Chicago Board Option Exchange or Commodities Futures Trading Commission, as I may elect. I authorize you if I do not make such election, by registered mail addressed to you at your main office within fifteen (15) days after receipt of notification from you requesting such election, to make such election in my behalf. Any arbitration hereunder shall be before at least three arbitrators and the award of the arbitrators, or of a majority of them, shall be final, and judgment upon the award rendered may be entered in any court, state or federal, having jurisdiction, (emphasis added).
In further support of their motion to stay, defendants noted the requirements of the Federal Arbitration Act which provide,
If any suit or proceeding be brought in any of the courts of the United States upon any issue referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing for such arbitration, the court in which such suit is pending, upon being satisfied that the issue involved in such suit or proceeding is referable to arbitration under such an agreement, shall on application of one of the parties stay the trial of the action until such arbitration has been had in accordance with the terms of the agreement, providing the applicant for the stay is not in default in proceeding with such arbitration.
9 U.S.C. § 3. Defendants argued that since the controversy at hand arose out of or related to the brokerage contract which was in interstate commerce, and was exactly the kind of dispute the arbitration clause was meant to deal with, the court was required to stay the action and compel arbitration.
Plaintiff opposed the motion to stay, arguing that submission of the dispute to arbitration was forbidden by the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law, Wisc.Stat. § 551.-59(8), which provided, “Any condition, stipulation or provision binding any person acquiring any security to waive compliance with any provision of this chapter or any rule or order hereunder is void.” Submitting the dispute to arbitration, plaintiff argued (and defendants apparently conceded) would effectively deny plaintiff the protection of this non-waiver provision. And Congress, plaintiff argued, could not have intended the commands of the Arbitration Act to overcome such a provision forbidding arbitral waiver of state securities laws. In support of her argument, plaintiff noted that Section 15 of the Federal Securities Act of 1933 specifically forbade waiver of the protection of the Act’s provisions, and that this section was subsequently held by the Supreme Court in Wilko v. Swan,
[fjederal regulation of a field must not be deemed preemptive of state regulatory authority in the same field in the absence of good reason. The exercise by a state of its inherent police power, which would be perfectly valid in the absence of federal action, is not preempted unless the intention of Congress to do so is clearly manifested in the federal legislation.
The court then posed the issue as a conflict between the mandate of the Arbitration Act and the entire Wisconsin securities regulation scheme, rather than as a conflict between the procedural requirements of the Arbitration Act and the contrary state procedural provision:
The case at bar presents a state remedial statute which adopts a uniform scheme of economic regulation, enacted pursuant to the state’s inherent police power, containing an ‘anti-waiver provision.’ This state enactment conflicts with a strong federal policy favoring arbitration expressed in the generalized Federal Arbitration Act.
Thus, the district court identified the preemption battlefield involved in this case as that of securities law rather than that of policies concerning informal dispute resolution:
... the conflict occurs in a subject matter area (securities law) in which the federal enactments contain clear and unequivocal language that they are not to be construed so as to preempt state regulation. See § 28a 1934 Act, and § 18, 1933 Act.
Having posed this conflict and noting that its own conclusion had been rejected by other district courts,
because this is a case where the state law involves inherent police power; is remedial in nature; presents a legislatively created cause of action; contains an anti-*1152 waiver clause; and deals with an area of the law in which Congress has expressly indicated it has not preempted state regulation, this Court is of the opinion that the statute can withstand the generalized provisions of the Federal Arbitration Act.
Accordingly, the district court denied the defendants’ motion to stay proceedings and compel arbitration. From this determination, defendants appeal.
II.
The Supreme Court has mandated that federal preemption questions be addressed through a two-tier inquiry. The reviewing court must first ask whether there is “such actual conflict between the two schemes of regulation that both cannot stand in the same area.” Florida Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul,
The instant case, we think, presents an “actual conflict” which may not be avoided, as the district court endeavored to do, through a balancing of state and federal interests. The Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 3, declares unambiguously that in “any suit or proceeding ... brought in any of the courts of the United States upon any issue referable to arbitration under an agreement in writing for such arbitration, the court in which such suit is proceeding shall on application of one of the parties stay the trial of the action until such arbitration has been had in accordance with the terms of the agreement.” (emphasis added). Wisc.Stat. § 551.59(8) purports to prohibit such a procedure. Plainly, here “compliance with both federal and state [laws] is a physical impossibility,” Florida Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul,
The matter might well stand differently if the Federal Arbitration Act declared only a general, non-binding policy in favor of arbitration, through the use of such qualifying words as “where feasible.” But the language of the Act is not precatory. Instead, as the Supreme Court has recently noted, the Act “is a congressional declaration of a liberal federal policy favoring arbitration agreements, notwithstanding any state substantive or procedural policies to the contrary. The effect of [Section 2 of the Act, generally holding such agreements enforceable] is to create a body of federal substantive law of arbitrability, applicable to any arbitration agreements within the coverage of the Act.” Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp.,-U.S.-,
The district court appeared to avoid this result through two-step reasoning. First, it downplayed the existence of direct, irreconcilable conflict (although it did acknowledge that the Wisconsin provision “conflicts” with the Arbitration Act) by maintaining that the real question before it concerned the clash between the Federal Arbitration Act and the scheme of substantive Wisconsin securities regulation. Having determined that the Federal Arbitration Act and state securities policy were the contenders for dominance, the district court concluded that the state anti-waiver provision must prevail because Congress declared its intent to leave state securities regulation intact and Wilko v. Swan expressly approved the confinement of the Arbitration Act where the Federal Securities Act of 1933 was involved (due to the existence of the latter’s anti-waiver provision) and thus by analogy would have countenanced the same result where state securities acts were at issue (due to a similar anti-waiver provision). We think the district court’s reasoning is vulnerable at either step.
First, the conflict we face is plainly not one of federal arbitration procedures versus Wisconsin substantive securities regulation. The conflict is rather between two procedural mandates — one that commands, and the other that prohibits, the arbitration of brokerage contract claims. If the Arbitration Act prevails, Wisconsin substantive securities law remains intact, and would indeed have to be considered by the arbitrator of the dispute here. In short, the real field
But even if securities regulation were somehow the field in which the required preemption analysis were to take place, it would still be inappropriate to apply the policy of Wilko to constrict the application of the Arbitration Act to claims based on breaches of state securities law. This is so because the Supreme Court in Wilko was concerned solely and expressly with the proper reconciliation of two “not easily reconcilable” federal mandates — the Securities Act and the Arbitration Act, see
In sum, we think that the district court’s search for congressional intent with respect to the Arbitration Act via the 1933 and 1934 Securities Acts and Wilko could not be productive. Here we face a naked and irreconcilable conflict between a precise federal mandate to arbitrate and a state provision which prevents arbitration. Once that conflict has been described, we need go no further, for federal preemption in such cases is automatic. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., - U.S. -,
For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s denial of defendants-appellants’ motion to stay proceedings and compel arbitration is reversed and the case is remanded with directions that proceedings be stayed and plaintiff-appellee's statutory claims, and, if otherwise warranted, her common law claims, be submitted to arbitration.
Reversed And Remanded.
Notes
. Plaintiff also apparently argued before the district court that a stay pending arbitration was unwarranted in light of Wisc.Stat. § 551.-59(7) which provides that any contract made in violation of the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law is unenforceable; since the entire brokerage contract at issue was alleged to be unlawful, she argued, the arbitration clause contained
. The district court did not address whether plaintiffs common law claims could withstand the application of the Federal Arbitration Act, and on appeal, plaintiff has offered no reason why they should not. In light of our holding below with respect to the statutory claims, we will not address this issue but instead instruct the district court on remand to consider whether the common law claims are arbitrable under the contractual arbitration clause here at issue.
. The conflict presented here has been presented in only three reported federal cases of which we are aware; in all three cases, Section 3 of the Arbitration Act was held to require arbitration despite the presence of a statutory non-waiver provision. See Bache Halsey Stuart Shields, Inc. v. Moebius,
. Plaintiff appears to argue on appeal that the language of Section 2 of the Arbitration Act making arbitration clauses enforceable “save upon such grounds as exist in law or in equity for the revocation of any contract” suggests that Congress countenanced that the Arbitration Act could be voided ab initio by state enactments like Wisconsin’s purporting to prohibit arbitration. However, this argument, which was not considered by the district court, ignores the language and purpose of the Act. Section 2 by its very terms permits voiding an arbitration clause only on legal grounds applicable to “any contract”; state law aimed specifically at preventing arbitration (unlike, say, the statute of frauds) is obviously not such a universally applicable legal principle. Moreover, such an expansive interpretation of Section 2 is contrary to the entire thrust of the Act which creates a “body of federal substantive law” mandating arbitration “notwithstanding any state substantive or procedural policies to the contrary,” Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, supra,
. It is true, as the dissent notes, that the case for federal preemption may be less persuasive where coordinated state and federal efforts exist within a complementary administrative framework. New York State Department of Social Services v. Dublino, 413 U.S. 405, 421,
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
While I agree with many of the general principles discussed in my brother Wood’s well written opinion, I part company with
Section 18 of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. § 77r, and § 28(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78bb(a), specifically provide for concurrent state regulation of securities. Section 14 of the 1933 Act, 15 U.S.C. § 77n, bars waiver of a judicial forum by an arbitration agreement, in spite of the provisions of the Federal Arbitration Act favoring such agreements. Wilko v. Swan,
Having answered the threshold question of actual or facial conflict in the negative, I find that the district court was correct in its analysis of the competing federal and state interests and in its conclusion that the Wisconsin anti-waiver provision has not been preempted by federal law. Contrary to the majority’s assertion, the “preemption battlefield” in the instant case is not merely that of policies concerning informal dispute resolution, but rather that of procedural advantages necessary to fully effectuate the substantive provisions of the Wisconsin securities laws. Cf. id. at 434-37,
Proper adherence to the principles of Federalism require that, where there is a conflict between state and federal policies, preemption of the subject area by the federal enactment should take place*1156 only when Congress clearly intends it to occur. The case at bar presents a state remedial statute which adopts a uniform scheme of economic regulation, enacted pursuant to the state's inherent police power, containing an “anti-waiver” provision. This state enactment conflicts with a strong federal policy favoring arbitration expressed in the generalized Federal Arbitration Act. However, the conflict occurs in a subject matter area (securities law) in which the federal enactments contain clear and unequivocal language that they are not to be construed so as to preempt state securities regulation. See § 28a, 1934 Act, and § 18, 1933 Act. In this context, it would seem that the Arbitration Act ought not to preempt the Wisconsin Securities law with its anti-waiver provision.
* * * * * *
In summary, because this is a case where the state law involves inherent police power; is remedial in nature; presents a legislatively created cause of action; contains an anti-waiver clause; and deals with an area of the law in which Congress has expressly indicated it has not preempted state regulation, this Court is of the opinion that the statute can withstand the generalized provisions of the Federal Arbitration Act.
Decision and Order at 8, 11. Kroog should not be compelled to arbitrate the two claims she brought under the Wisconsin Uniform Securities Law. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision directing that proceedings be stayed pending arbitration of these claims.
