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1 1 (August 23, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/goveqkv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Arbitration Law Update: The Supreme Court's October 2023 Term August 23, 2024 Many contracts contain arbitration agreements that waive the parties' right to litigate disputes in court and instead require them to submit legal claims to binding arbitration before a neutral third party. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) generally makes covered arbitration agreements valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, and it requires federal and state courts to rigorously enforce the agreements according to their terms. The FAA's scope is broad, generally applying to any arbitration agreement found in a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce. Reflecting the FAA's significance, it is not uncommon for the Supreme Court to hear multiple cases arising under the FAA in a single term. This term, the Court heard three: Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC; Smith v. Spizzirri; and Coinbase, Inc. v. Suski. FAA cases have at times resulted in sharply divided rulings that split the Supreme Court along perceived ideological lines, such as in cases addressing the enforceability of arbitration agreements that waive the right to bring class action claims in consumer and employment contexts. In its 2023 term, however, the Court issued unanimous decisions in each of the three FAA cases it heard. This Legal Sidebar briefly examines these cases and discusses considerations for Congress. Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC Bissonnette is the latest in a series of cases in which the Supreme Court has interpreted the scope of the FAA's exemption for transportation workers. While Section 2 of the FAA applies the statute broadly to written arbitration agreements in contracts involving commerce, Section 1 exempts from the FAA's scope contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce. Over two decades ago in Circuit City Stores, Inc. v Adams, the Court held that the FAA's text and purpose require construing this exemption as limited to transportation workers. In 2019, the Court next held in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira that the exemption's reference to contracts of employment applies both to employer-employee agreements and to agreements with independent contractors. Three years later in Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, the Court clarified the scope of Section 1's exemption in ruling that an airport ramp supervisor for Southwest Airlines was an exempt transportation worker. The Court explained in Saxon that any class of workers directly involved in transporting goods across state or international borders falls within the exemption. The ramp Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11217 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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