The U.S. Supreme Court is in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/
July 8, 2022 - With four Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) cases on the Supreme Court's 2021-2022 docket — each involving a different, frequently litigated issue — expectations were high for significant new guidance regarding the FAA's protection of arbitration agreements. Those seeking a limit to the FAA's reach were hoping for an end to what they saw as a string of pro-arbitration rulings. Others anticipated expansion of prior FAA holdings enforcing arbitration agreements.
The Court did neither. It instead issued unanimous, or virtually unanimous, decisions that ruled narrowly — reaffirming prior principles and expanding them marginally but declining to address broader questions teed up by the parties and amici. These consensus holdings, avoiding the polarized 5-4 divide in a number of prior FAA cases, demonstrate broad acceptance of the Court's FAA precedents and no interest in substantial modifications of current law.
But the narrow rulings provide little guidance on issues that could well return to the Court for resolution, depending on how the lower courts decide them.
Badgerow v. Walters presented a simple question: When a party seeks to confirm, or contest, an arbitration award, does the ability to access federal court turn on the availability of diversity jurisdiction, or may a federal court "look through" the complaint and take jurisdiction if the underlying claim rested on federal...
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