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-actionarbitration changes the nature of arbitration to such a degree that itcannot be presumed the parties consented to it by simply agreeing tosubmit their disputes to arbitration." In this case, an arbitratorconcluded that the parties affirmatively consented to class arbitrationon the basis of a contract provision stating: "No civil actionconcerning any dispute arising under this Agreement shall be institutedbefore any court, and all such disputes shall be submitted to final andbinding arbitration." The question presented is:

Whether an arbitrator acts within his powers under the FederalArbitration Act (as the Second and Third Circuits have held) or exceedsthose powers (as the Fifth Circuit has held) by determining that partiesaffirmatively "agreed to authorize class arbitration," Stolt-Nielsen,130 S. Ct. at 1776, based solely on their use of broad contractuallanguage precluding litigation and requiring arbitration of any disputearising under their contract.

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