I Really Hope That This Happens

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a case from Delaware which effectively makes arbitration hearings there open to the public:

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the public and the press to sit in on arbitration of business disputes in Delaware, when a state judge acts as the arbitrator. That was the result of the Court’s denial of an appeal by a group of Delaware judges, seeking to keep those proceedings closed to the public. If business firms do not like having a public audience, that could limit or even kill a four-year-old Delaware experiment.

That was one of several denials of review in significant cases. In addition, the Court agreed to add to its decision docket for next Term a new case on the appeal rights of state prisoners in federal habeas courts. It also sought the U.S. government’s views on the deadline for filing a lawsuit claiming that the manager of a retirement plan made faulty investment decisions, and on the right of an investor to sue over the filing of a defective stock registration statement, when the investor acquired an interest in the stock before such a statement existed.

The Court offered no explanation, as usual, when it decided against reviewing the Delaware arbitration case, Strine v. Delaware Coalition for Open Government.

Ordinarily, arbitration proceedings are not public events, because they are a way to resolve private legal disputes without the formality of a court trial and without much of the expense of hiring trial lawyers and of paying for pre-trial and trial maneuvering. Delaware’s legislature wanted to keep arbitration a closed matter when it decided, in 2009, to allow state judges to take on the task of arbitrator in a closed system.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled, however, that this would turn arbitration into something like a civil courtroom trial, so they had to be open to the public and the press under a string of Supreme Court precedents on the right of First Amendment access to court proceedings.

Considering Delaware's history of whoring for shady corporate entities, I expect to see a rewrite of the law to once again favor corporations, but it's nice to see some more push-back against the corrupt and blatantly unfair arbitration which we are saddled with in the United States.