Petitions of the week

Issue: Whether the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s tailoring requirement – which provides that before a district court may order prospective relief with respect to prison conditions, it must find “that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right,” 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1)(A) – prohibits a district court from ordering a prison to maintain a maximum heat index to remedy a constitutional violation caused by heat.

Issue: Whether a private securities-fraud plaintiff may establish the critical element of loss causation based on a decline in the market price of a security when the event or disclosure that triggered the decline did not reveal the fraud on which the plaintiff’s claim is based.

Issues: (1) Whether a general choice-of-law clause in a contract that contains an arbitration agreement should be read, consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and the Supreme Court’s decisions, to import state substantive law without importing state rules impairing arbitration, as 10 federal courts of appeals and nine state courts of appeals have held, or whether a general choice-of-law clause should be read to incorporate both state substantive law and state arbitration principles, including those barring or otherwise evincing hostility to arbitration, as four state courts of appeals and one federal court of appeals have held; and (2) whether a litigant may avoid the enforcement of a contractual clause delegating questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator merely by stating that the litigant’s objection to arbitration—which must ordinarily be resolved by the arbitrator—apply equally to the delegation clause itself.

Issues: (1) Whether a general choice-of-law clause in a contract that contains an arbitration agreement should be read, consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and the Supreme Court’s decisions, to import state substantive law without importing state rules impairing arbitration, as 10 federal courts of appeals and nine state courts of appeals have held, or whether a general choice-of-law clause should be read to incorporate both state substantive law and state arbitration principles, including those barring or otherwise evincing hostility to arbitration, as four state courts of appeals and one federal court of appeals have held; and (2) whether a litigant may avoid the enforcement of a contractual clause delegating questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator merely by stating that the litigant’s objection to arbitration—which must ordinarily be resolved by the arbitrator—apply equally to the delegation clause itself.