FOI Imre Szalai (Loyola- New Orleans) sent an email around on the DLRE Listserv this past Friday and, with his permission, I am posting it here for readers of the blog:

Hi everyone,

The big news out of the Supreme Court today involved the Texas abortion ban, but the Court also added some new arbitration cases to its docket.

In one case, the Court will decide the scope of the “transportation worker” exemption from Section 1 of the FAA (Whether workers who load or unload goods from vehicles that travel in interstate commerce, but do not physically transport such goods themselves, are interstate “transportation workers” exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act).  SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. V. SAXON, LATRICE, 21-309.

IMHO, the transportation worker problem flows from one of the many errors the Court has made with respect to the FAA; the Court’s 2001 opinion in Circuit City is deeply flawed.   Under an original understanding of the FAA, no workers were supposed to be covered by the statute at all.

In the other two cases (consolidated by the Court), the Court will resolve whether private commercial arbitration tribunals are a “foreign or international tribunal” under 28 USC § 1782(a).  ZF AUTOMOTIVE US, INC., ET AL. V. LUXSHARE, 21-401; ALIXPARTNERS, ET AL. V. FUND FOR PROTECTION OF INVESTORS’ RIGHTS; 21-518.

Imre Stephen Szalai, Judge John D. Wessel Distinguished Professor of Social Justice

Loyola University New Orleans College of Law