States District Court for the Southern District of California to state that arbitration under AT&T Mobility's agreement was "quick, easy to use, and prompts full or, as described by Plaintiffs, even excess payment to the customer without the need to arbitrate or litigate." Nevertheless, the district court declined to dismiss the suit, ruling that California law prohibits contracts that unfairly exculpate one party from its wrongdoing, such as clauses that do not allow class action lawsuits alleging fraud in consumer adhesion contracts where the individual damages are small. AT&T appealed the case, saying that the Federal Arbitration Act should preempt state law. On October 27, 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court decision. AT&T, represented by Andrew J. Pincus of Mayer Brown, then appealed to the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court granted review, appellate lawyer Deepak Gupta of Washington, D.C. was brought in to help represent the Concepcions and to argue the case in the Supreme Court on their behalf. The Court heard oral arguments on November 9, 2010. Justices Scalia and Sotomayor questioned Pincus (attorney for AT&T Mobility) about when unconscionability doctrines are made under state law. Pincus argued that the California law was not being applied uniformly. Scalia challenged that assertion when he asked, "Are we going to tell the State of California what it has to consider unconscionable?". Other justices questioned different procedural issues arising from the unconscionability discussion and the scope of the rule AT&T was proposing. Deepak Gupta, representing the Concepcions, argued that the contract AT&T imposed on Respondents was clearly unfair. He asserted that state law should be a guidepost in these questions. Some of his arguments drew criticism from Chief Justice John Roberts. Gupta concluded by arguing that California "has made a judgment that if you preclude class-wide relief... that will gut the State's substantive consumer protection laws..." Judgment The majority opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. "Requiring the availability of classwide arbitration interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration," Scalia wrote. "We find it hard to believe that defendants would bet the company with no effective means of review, and even harder to believe that Congress would have intended to allow state courts to force such a decision." Justice Scalia focused on the impact California's unconscionability law was having on arbitration