Monday round-up

By James Bickford
on Nov 8, 2010 at 10:49 am

Tomorrow in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the Court will consider whether the Federal Arbitration Act precludes states from requiring that all arbitration agreements provide for certain procedures, such as class-wide arbitration.  Because many contracts require claims to be resolved through arbitration, a victory for AT&T Mobility could lead to a scenario in which, per David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times, “any business that issues a contract to customers… would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits.”  In an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle, Brian Fitzpatrick argues that the case “could end class-action litigation in America as we know it,” while in his column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Matthew Hathaway suggests that federal regulators should look closely at arbitration agreements no matter how the case is decided.  Amanda Becker of the Washington Post discusses the effect that the Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility could have on a pending case in which former Hooters employees were prevented from bringing a class action against the company.

A gay rights group – the Log Cabin Republicans – has asked the Court to reinstate a nationwide injunction against the “don’t ask/don’t tell” law regarding military service.  (The injunction was issued by a federal district court in California but stayed by the Ninth Circuit.)  Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit, has asked the government to respond by Wednesday.  Josh Gerstein of Politico, Philip Elliott of the Associated Press (via Forbes), Mark Thompson of Time’s Swampland blog, Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post, and this blog all have coverage of the case.

Last week’s cases continue to garner attention.  At ACSblog, Annie Decker reviews the oral argument in Williamson v. Mazda, in which the Court is considering whether federal safety regulations requiring car manufacturers to install either a lap belt or a lap/shoulder belt in certain seating positions preclude the family of an accident victim from claiming that, under state law, a manufacturer’s choice to install a lap belt was negligent.  And the editorial board of the Oregonian weighs in on Schwarzenegger v. EMA, writing that “California’s law, however imperfectly drafted, needs to find footing so it can set a promising example.”

Finally, at the Blog of Legal Times, Tony Mauro reports on the appearance by retired Justice John Paul Stevens at the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation.  As Kali noted in Friday’s round-up, the Justice compared his initial – negative – reaction to seeing Japanese tourists at Pearl Harbor to the dispute over the Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, explaining that “[t]he Japanese tourists were not responsible for what some of their countrymen did decades ago; the Muslims planning to build the mosque are not responsible for what an entirely different group of Muslims did on 9/11.”

Briefly:

• The Associated Press (via the St. Louis Globe-Democrat) has coverage of the cert. grant in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, which will address the question of whether a minor might reasonably believe that he was not free to end police questioning – the standard for triggering Miranda rights – even though a similarly situated adult would have felt free to go.

• Wendy Kaminer of the Atlantic continues the debate over the place of cameras in the Supreme Court, arguing that the Court’s resistance to them is “increasingly anachronistic.”

• Ruthann Robson at Constitutional Law Prof Blog suggests that with the departure of Justice Stevens, Justice Sonia Sotomayor may be “the most sympathetic Justice to claims by criminal defendants.”