U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument today in class arbitration case: Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter

Today at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case involving class arbitration, Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, No. 12-135.

When the transcript is posted online later today, it should be available at this link. 

For more on Oxford Health, see this blog post.  Here is the question presented as stated in the cert. petition:

In Stolt-Nielsen v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., 130 S. Ct. 1758, 1776 (2010), this Court made clear that "class-action arbitration changes the nature of arbitration to such a degree that it cannot be presumed the parties consented to it by simply agreeing to submit their disputes to arbitration." In this case, an arbitrator concluded that the parties affirmatively consented to class arbitration on the basis of a contract provision stating: "No civil action concerning any dispute arising under this Agreement shall be instituted before any court, and all such disputes shall be submitted to final and binding arbitration." The question presented is:

Whether an arbitrator acts within his powers under the Federal Arbitration Act (as the Second and Third Circuits have held) or exceeds those powers (as the Fifth Circuit has held) by determining that parties affirmatively "agreed to authorize class arbitration," Stolt-Nielsen, 130 S. Ct. at 1776, based solely on their use of broad contractual language precluding litigation and requiring arbitration of any dispute arising under their contract.

The Third Circuit's opinion was Sutter v. Oxford Health Plans LLC, 675 F.3d 215 (3d Cir. 2012).