Performance Jet Skis, LLC v. Bank of America, N.A.

── Performance Jet Skis, LLC v. Bank of America, N.A. ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Date: May 15, 2026 Category: General NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 15 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT PERFORMANCE JET SKIS, LLC; No. 25-2438 WORLDWIDEWEBBSOLUTIONS, LLC; A&F LOGISTICS, LLC, individually and D.C. No. on behalf of all others similarly situated, 2:24-cv-02328-MRA-PVC Plaintiffs - Appellants, MEMORANDUM* v. BANK OF AMERICA, N.A., Defendant - Appellee, Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Monica Ramirez Almadani, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted April 22, 2026 Pasadena, California Before: HIGGINSON, NGUYEN, and BRESS, Circuit Judges.** Plaintiffs-Appellants are three California businesses: Performance Jet Skis, * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Stephen A. Higginson, United States Circuit Judge for the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation. LLC, WorldWideWebb Solutions, LLC, and A&F Logistics, LLC. Plaintiffs each have business accounts with Defendant-Appellee Bank of America, N.A. (“BANA”), and filed a class action challenging BANA’s practice of charging various overdraft fees. Each Plaintiff signed BANA’s standard Deposit Agreement. The agreement includes a section titled “How Claims on Business Accounts will be Resolved,” which provides: You have the right to compel us at your option, and we have the right to compel you at our option, to resolve a Claim relating to a business account by binding arbitration. If neither you nor we decide to compel arbitration, then the Claim will be resolved in court by a judge without a jury, as permitted by law. There is an exception for Claims brought in a California state court. If a Claim relating to a business account is brought in a California state court, either you or we can seek to compel the other to have the Claim resolved by general reference to a judicial referee under California Code of Civil Procedure (C.C.P.) Section 638, as provided below. Both parties may also agree to resolve their disputes through judicial reference. These provisions (the “Dispute Resolution Provisions”) thus provide three options for resolving claims, subject to certain circumstances: arbitration, a bench trial, or judicial reference. The latter option is a special procedure in California, wherein a court-appointed referee resolves the case, while the court retains judicial oversight over the decision. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 638. This appeal concerns the threshold question of which procedural resolution pathway applies under the Deposit Agreement. After BANA removed the case from 2 25-2438 California state court to federal court, it moved to compel arbitration. Plaintiffs subsequently moved to compel judicial reference. The district court granted BANA’s motion and denied Plaintiffs’ motion, reasoning that the contract language was not ambiguous and that Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the Dispute Resolution Provisions, which permitted them to move to compel judicial reference after BANA invoked the right to arbitrate, was unreasonable. Accordingly, the district court held that “the agreement compels only one result: that either party has the right to compel arbitration.” We review a district court’s “o