SCOTUS Decision in Badgerow v. Walters: Arbitration and Federal Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

Today the Supreme Court issued its decision in Badgerow v. Walters (covered earlier here). Justice Kagan’s majority opinion concludes that when a request to confirm or vacate an arbitral award under Sections 9 and 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is filed in federal court, “a court may look only to the application actually submitted to it in assessing its jurisdiction.” That is, the Court rejected the so-called “look-through” approach that it had endorsed for petitions to compel arbitration under Section 4 of the FAA in Vaden v. Discover Bank, 556 U.S. 49 (2009). Justice Kagan reasoned that Sections 9 and 10 “lack Section 4’s distinctive language directing a look-through, on which Vaden rested.”

Justice Breyer was the lone dissenter, arguing that “Congress intended a single approach for determining jurisdiction of the FAA’s interrelated enforcement mechanisms, not one approach for the mechanism provided in Section 4 and a different approach for the mechanisms provided in all other sections.”