If arbitration matters to you, this post from Prof. Mitchell Rubenstein at Adjunct Law Profs Blog is worth a read:
Marmet Health Care v. Brown, 565 U.S. ___ (Feb. 21, 2012), is an interesting case. In a relatively short Per Curiam opinion, the Court reverses the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia which held that that under the FAA all predispute arbitration agreements that apply to claims alleging personal injury or wrong death against nursing homes were unenforcable.
The Court held that the West Virgina court misread the Supreme Court decisions under the FAA and that "[w]hen this Court fulfilled its duty to interpret federal law, a state court may not contradict or fail to implement the rule so established."
What might be of most interest to scholars and lawyers is the Court's statement that the FAA "reflects an emphatic federal policy in favor of arbitral dispute resolution." (citations omitted).
