In His First Supreme Court Opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh Favors Arbitration

[Elderberry]

NY Times By Adam Liptak 1/8/2019

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh issued his first Supreme Court opinion on Tuesday, writing for a unanimous court in a minor arbitration case. His eight-page opinion was crisp and clear.

Only seven of his colleagues were present as he summarized the opinion from the bench. For the second day in a row, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is recuperating from cancer surgery, was missing. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. announced that she would participate in the day’s two cases by reviewing the transcripts of the arguments.

The question in the arbitration case, Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer & White Sales Inc., No. 17-1272, was who should decide whether a dispute should be resolved through arbitration rather than litigation. Justice Kavanaugh said arbitrators, rather than judges, should decide whether contracts calling for arbitration applied to the disputes before them.

More: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/politics/supreme-court-brett-kavanaugh-opinion.html

[Elderberry]

http://www.scotusblog.com/2019/01/wednesday-round-up-456/

In his first Supreme Court opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for a unanimous court yesterday in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., holding that under the Federal Arbitration Act, a court must enforce an arbitration agreement that requires the arbitrator to decide whether a dispute should be decided in arbitration, regardless of the court’s view of the merits of the request for arbitration. Kevin Daley covers the opinion for The Daily Caller, and Daniel Pasternak provides analysis at The National Law Review. At Law.com, Tony Mauro reports that “Kavanaugh’s opinion was a terse 10 pages long, written in straightforward prose, and he began the opinion with a brief summary of the case and its outcome, which not all justices do.” At Bloomberg Law, Kimberly Robinson explains that assigning Kavanaugh a unanimous first opinion accords with an “informal tradition” on the Supreme Court.