Litigation Fundamentals | Badgerow Bewilders Arbitration Confirmation

In this episode of Litigation Fundamentals, series creator Henry M. Quillian III and firm member Ryan Arnold present an overview on the Supreme Court Badgerow case from March 31, 2022. The Badgerow case involved an employment arbitration for plaintiff Denise Badgerow, a financial advisor in Louisiana who was fired, and her efforts to vacate an arbitration award favoring her employer REJ properties. Their discussion hinges on statutory interpretation and textualism related to sections 9 and 10 the Federal Arbitration Act. Section 9 FAA allows a party to have a federal or state court confirm an arbitration award and Section 10 addresses means to vacate an award. The Eastern District of Louisiana found subject matter jurisdiction in federal court applying Vaden "look through" jurisdiction (the court looks through the arbitration dispute to see if it is based on a federal question cause of action. .The case went up to the 5th circuit court, which affirmed jurisdiction. The Supreme Court reversed the decision based on textual interpretation, finding that the wording of Sections 9 and 10 did not have the same language as Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act which allowed "look through" jurisdiction. The decision was 8:1 with a 15 page opinion. Justice Kagan shared as part of her opinion, “It’s not for this court to employ untethered notions of what might be good public policy to expand our jurisdiction.” The Supreme Court’s rejection of the notion of reading statutory sections together to give rise to presumed jurisdiction, though to the end of an unfortunate result, further points to the need for Congress to address the issue by amending the statute, instead of the Court endeavoring to re-write the statute.