Hello, this is R.J. Deakin, reading the Supreme Court of the United States opinion syllabus in Jules versus Andre Balaz Properties. Search your RE to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Argued March 30th, 2026, and decided May 14, 2026. A little late getting to this one. My birthday was May 13th, 2026, by the way. This case presents the question whether a federal court that has previously stayed claims in a pending action under Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act has jurisdiction to confirm or vacate a resulting arbitral award on those claims, even when the motion to confirm under Section 9 or the motion to vacate under Section 10 does not independently present a basis for federal jurisdiction on its face. Between 2017 and 2020, petitioner Andrien Jules worked at the Chateau Mormont Hotel in Los Angeles, California. When the hotel ended his employment in March 2020, Jules sued in federal district court in New York, alleging that respondents unlawfully discriminated against him in violation of federal and state law. Citing an arbitration agreement Jules had signed before beginning work at the hotel, respondents moved to state federal proceedings, pending arbitration under Section 3 of the FAA. The district court held that the arbitration agreement covered Jules' claims and stayed the proceedings. Jules then commenced arbitration against respondents. The arbiter issued a final award ruling against Jules on all claims and awarding approximately $34,500 in sanctions to the respondents. Back in the same district court that had previously stayed Jules' claims pending arbitration, respondents moved to confirm the award under Section 9. Jules opposed confirmation while cross-moving to vacate the arbital award under Section 10 on various grounds. Jules argued that under Badgelow v. Walters, the District Court lacked jurisdiction to confirm the award because the Section 9 and Section 10 motions neither presented federal questions nor satisfied the requirements for diversity jurisdiction. The District Court disagreed and confirmed the Arbital Award. The Second Circuit affirmed, reasoning that Bad Row involved a freestanding action commenced for the sole purpose of vacating an arbitral award, but that the present action was distinct because it started as a federal question suit before it was stayed pending arbitration. The Second Circuit held that a court with the power to stay in action under Section 3 has the further power to confirm any ensuing arbitration award, regardless of whether there is an independent jurisdictional basis for the Section 9 and Section 10 proceedings. The Supreme Court held the decision is affirmed, and Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion. A federal court that has previously stayed claims in a pending action under Section 3 of the FAA has jurisdiction to confirm or vacate a resulting arbitral award on those claims as prescribed in section nine and ten of the FAA. Nothing in the FAA precludes the normal operation of federal jurisdiction regarding live claims pending before a federal court. Unlike with the freestanding applications at issue in VADEN v. Discover Bank and Badrow, assessing jurisdiction over a Section 9 or Section 10 motion on a case originally filed in federal court does not require look through the filed action to the parties underlying substantive controversy outside of court. Assessing jurisdiction over a Section 9 or Section 10 motion in a case originally filed in federal court does not require looking through the filed action to the party's underlying substantive controversy outside of court. Instead, the court may assess its jurisdiction by looking at the suit that is already before it. As Badro explained, jurisdiction to decide a case includes jurisdiction to decide a motion within that case, and usually there is no need to look through the motion in search of a jurisdictional basis outside of the court. The district court had original jurisdiction under 28 USC section 1331 over Jules' federal claims. And it was that very jurisdiction which authorized the court to adjudicate the arbitrability of Jules' claims under the party's contracts before staying litigation, pending arbitration pursuant to section three. Nothing in the FAA eliminated that jurisdiction while the parties arbitrated. When the parties returned to court after arbitration with section nine and section ten motions, the courts had the same jurisdiction to decide the case, and thus jurisdiction to decide those motions that it possessed from the start. That's Badrow. This case, therefore, is not, as the petitioner asserts, badger, all over again. In Badro, the first and only thing that had occurred in federal court was the confirm or vacate dispute under section 9 and 10. In that circumstance, there were only two places a court could look to find federal jurisdiction, the face of the FAA motions or the underlying dispute that was not before the court. Here, however, there is an obvious third place to look for jurisdiction, the original claims themselves, which were sufficient to establish the district court's jurisdiction under Section 28 USC 1331. The fact that the Arbital Award may have resolved Jules' original claims only underscores why the District Court's original jurisdiction extended to the party's Section 9 and Section 10 motions. Those motions required the district court to assess whether there were grounds to vacate the award. The motions were thus integral to determining whether the award would continue to serve as a valid defense to the original claims that had been stayed, but were still pending in district court until the court confirmed the award. Jules notes that unlike dismissal based on an affirmative defense, a Section 9 motion goes further and asks a court to convert an arbital award into a judgment of the court. That is correct. But federal courts have the power to incorporate private settlements into orders of the court when resolving claims that are the subject of those settlements as reorganized in uh Kokoninen Guardian versus Guardian Life Insurance of America, as well as the context of consent judgments and class action settlements. The FAA's structure further confirms jurisdiction here. In Smith versus Spizari, the court held that section three requires a stay rather than dismissal, which comports with the supervisory role that the FAA envisions for the courts, including assisting parties in arbitration and facilitating recovery on an arbital award. Under the rule the court adopts today, this scheme continues to work well. The FAA requires a stay so that a court that has granted a section three stay can superintend the arbitration to the end, including through confirmation or vacator under Section 9 and Section 10. But Jules's remaining counterarguments are without merit. First, Jules overreads badger, which did not convert the non-jurisdictional FAA into a comprehensive jurisdictional scheme that requires an independent jurisdictional basis for all Section 9 and Section 10 motions. The problem for the losing party in badger was that without the look through approach authorized by section four, there was no federal jurisdiction to be found in the case. The court held that it was not available. Respondents here, to the contrary, are not asking for any highly unusual look through rule, but merely asked the district court to use the tools provided by the FAA to finally resolve the federal claims Jules filed in federal court under 28 USC Section 1331. Second, Jules argues that Section 9 and Section 10 applications should be treated as entirely new federal actions for purposes of asserting jurisdiction, even when filed in pre-existing suits. Because Section 9 and Section 12 of the FAA require service and notice of such applications, that argument fails. The court has explained that section three's mandatory stay is aimed at avoiding the costs and complications of bringing a new suit that's aules concedes, moreover, that service of Section 9 and Section 10 motions is not required in all cases. The service provisions in Section 9 and Section 12 do not impose the strict jurisdictional rule he favors. Third, Jules's reliance on Section 8 of the FAA, which governs certain maritime arbitrations, is unavailing. Section eight merely instructs that in one class of admiralty cases involving in REM jurisdiction over a vessel, the court holding the vessel must retain jurisdiction to confirm or vacate such an award. It does not shed light on how jurisdiction should function in other FAA disputes. Finally, Jules's policy concerns lack force. His concerns about encouraging parties to engage in useless federal litigation to create a jurisdictional anchor are conjectural, and there is no evidence suggesting that his concerns about manufactured federal jurisdiction will come to pass. Moreover, it's not anomalous for federal jurisdiction to turn on how litigation proceeded, as actual litigation generally defines the party's controversy. That's Vaden. In any event, countervailing policy concerns favor the court's rule. Jules's rule would significantly diminish the supervisory role that the FAA envisions for the courts, Spizari, and would undermine the efficiency interest at the heart of the FAA by forcing parties to launch a fresh state court proceeding to secure confirmation or vacator of an arbitral award. Jules's approach could also lead to unnecessarily complex dual track litigation where confirm or vacate proceedings commence in state court. Justice arbitrability appeals begin in federal court. The decision below is affirmed, and Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion for unanimous court. Thanks for listening. I'm going to get to the next one.