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Syllabus
define "a final decision with respect to an arbitration" or otherwise suggest that the ordinary meaning of "final decision" should not apply, this Court accords the term its well-established meaning. See Evans v. United States, 504 U. S. 255, 259-260. The District Court's order plainly falls within that meaning because it disposed of the entire case on the merits and left no part of it pending before the court. The fact that the FAA permits parties to arbitration agreements to bring a separate proceeding to enter judgment on an arbitration award once it is made (or to vacate or modify it) does not vitiate the finality of the District Court's resolution of the claims below. Moreover, this Court disagrees with petitioners' contention that the phrase "final decision" does not include an order compelling arbitration and dismissing the other claims in the action when that order occurs in an "embedded" proceeding, such as this one, involving both an arbitration request and other claims for relief, as distinguished from an "independent" proceeding in which a request to order arbitration is the sole issue before the court. It does not appear that, at the time of § 16(a)(3)'s enactment, Court of Appeals decisions attaching significance to this independent/embedded distinction, and its consequences for finality, were so firmly established that this Court should assume Congress meant to incorporate them into § 16(a)(3). Certainly the statute's plain language does not suggest such an intent. Pp. 84-89.
2. Randolph's agreement to arbitrate is not rendered unenforceable simply because it says nothing about arbitration costs, and thus fails to provide her protection from potentially substantial costs of pursuing her federal statutory claims in the arbitral forum. In light of the FAA's purpose to reverse longstanding judicial hostility to arbitration agreements and to place them on the same footing as other contracts, Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U. S. 20, 24, this Court has recognized that federal statutory claims can be appropriately resolved through arbitration and has enforced agreements involving such claims, see, e. g., Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477. In determining whether such claims may be arbitrated, the Court asks whether the parties agreed to submit the claims to arbitration and whether Congress has evinced an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory rights at issue. See, e. g., Gilmer, supra, at 26. Here, it is undisputed that the parties agreed to arbitrate all claims relating to their contract, including claims involving statutory rights, and Randolph does not contend that the TILA evinces an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies. She contends instead that the arbitration agreement's silence with respect to costs creates a "risk" that she will be required to bear prohibitive arbitration
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