1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2021

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BADGEROW v . WALTERS ET AL

.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 20–1143. Argued November 2, 2021—Decided March 31, 2022
The Federal Arbitration Act authorizes a party to an arbitration agree

ment to petition a federal court fo r various forms of relief. But the Act’s authorization of such petition s does not itself create the subjectmatter jurisdiction necessary for a federal court to resolve them. Ra

ther, the federal court must have an “independent jurisdictional basis” to do so. Hall Street Associates, L. L. C. v. Mattel, Inc. , 552 U. S. 576, 582. In Vaden v. Discover Bank , 556 U. S. 49, this Court assessed whether there was a jurisdictional basis to decide an FAA Section 4 petition to compel arbitration by means of examining the parties’ un

derlying dispute. The Court reasoned that specific language in Section 4 instructed a federal court to “look through” the petition to the “un

derlying substantive controversy.” Id., at 62

. If the dispute underlying a Section 4 petition falls within th e court’s jurisdiction—for example, by presenting a federal question—the n the court may rule on the peti

tion to compel arbitration.

In this case, the question pres ented is whether that same “look

through” approach to jurisdiction a pplies to applications to confirm or vacate arbitral awards under Sections 9 and 10 of the FAA. Petitioner Denise Badgerow initiated an arbi tration proceeding against her em

ployer’s principals (collectively, Wa lters), alleging that she was unlaw

fully terminated. After arbitrators dismissed Badgerow’s claims, she filed suit in Louisiana state court to vacate the arbitral award. Wal

ters removed the case to Federal District Court and applied to confirm the award. Badgerow th en moved to remand the case to state court, arguing that the federal court lacked jurisdiction to resolve the parties’ requests—under Sections 10 and 9 of the FAA, respectively—to vacate or confirm the award. Th e District Court applied Vaden ’s look-through approach, finding jurisdiction in th e federal-law claims contained in2 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Syllabus
Badgerow’s underlying employment action. The District Court acknowledged that Sections 9 and 10 of the FAA lack the distinctive text on which Vaden relied, but it applied th e look-through approach anyway so that “consistent jurisdic tional principles” would govern all kinds of FAA applications. The Fifth Circuit affirmed.
Held : Vaden ’s “look-through” approach to determining federal jurisdic

tion does not apply to requests to confirm or vacate arbitral awards under Sections 9 and 10 of the FAA. Pp. 4–16. (a) Congress has granted federal district courts jurisdiction over two main kinds of cases: suits between citizens of different States as to any matter valued at more than $75,000 (diversity cases), 28 U. S. C. §1332(a), and suits “arising under” federal law (federal-question cases), §1331. Normally, a court has federal-question jurisdiction whenever federal law authorizes an action. But because this Court has held that the FAA’s provisions do not themselves support federal jurisdiction, a federal court must find an independent basis for juris

diction to resolve an arbitral dispute. In this case, neither application reveals a jurisdictional basis on its face. So to find an independent basis for jurisdiction, the District Court had to look through the Sec

tion 9 and 10 applications to th e underlying substantive dispute, where a federal-law claim sati sfying §1331 indeed exists.

In Vaden , this Court approved the look -through approach for a Sec

tion 4 petition by relying on that section’s express language. That lan

guage provides that a party to an arbitration agreement may petition for an order to compel arbitration in a “United States district court which, save for [the arbitration] agreement, would have jurisdiction” over “the controversy between the part ies.” “The phrase ‘save for [the arbitration] agreement,’ ” the Court stated, “indicates that the district court should assume th e absence of the arbitr ation agreement and de

termine whether [the court] ‘would have jurisdiction . . .’ without it” by looking through to the “underlying substantive controversy” between the parties. 556 U. S., at 62.

Sections 9 and 10 of the FAA contain none of the statutory language on which Vaden relied. So under ordinary principles of statutory con

struction, the look-through method should not apply. “[W]hen Con

gress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act,” this Court generally takes the choice to be deliberate. Collins v. Yellen , 594 U. S. ___, ___. That holds true for jurisdictional questions, as federal “district courts may not ex

ercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Al

lapattah Services, Inc. , 545 U. S. 546, 552. Because a statutory basis for look-through jurisdiction is lack ing in Sections 9 and 10, the Court cannot reach the same result here as in Vaden . Pp. 4–9.3 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Syllabus

(b) Walters presents a two-part ar gument to justify exercising juris

diction here. Walters first claims that Section 4’s language does not authorize look-through ju risdiction, but is only a capacious venue pro

vision designed to give applicants a broad choice among federal courts possessing jurisdiction. Walters ne xt construes Section 6—which re

quires any FAA application to “be made and heard in the manner pro

vided by law for the making and he aring of motions”—to provide the basis for an FAA-wide look-through rule.

Walters’s reading of Section 4 does not comport with how Vaden un

derstood Section 4 or with the actual text of that provision, which never mentions venue, and refers on ly to jurisdiction. And Walters’s Section 6 argument fares no better. Courts do not possess jurisdiction to decide ordinary motions by virtue of the look-through method. So Congress would not have prescribed th at method by telling courts, as Section 6 does, to treat FAA applications like motions. Pp. 9–12.

(c) Walters also makes several policy arguments preaching the vir

tues of adopting look-through as a uniform jurisdictional rule. Walters claims that a uniform rule will pr omote “administrative simplicity”; that the look-through a pproach will be “easier to apply” than a test grounding jurisdiction on the face of the FAA application itself; and that the look-through rule will prov ide federal courts with more com

prehensive control over the arbitrat ion process. Brief for Respondents 27, 28. But “[e]ven the most formidable policy arguments cannot over

come a clear statutory directive.” BP p.l.c. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore , 593 U. S. ___, ___. And an yway, Walters oversells the superiority of his proposal. First, uniformity in and of itself provides no real advantage here because courts can easily tell whether to apply look-through or the normal jurisdic tional rules. Second, the use of those ordinary rules, in the contex t of arbitration applications, is hardly beyond judicial capacity. And third, there are good reasons why state, rather than federal, courts should handle applications like the ones in this case. Pp. 12–16. 975 F. 3d 469, reversed and remanded.

K

AGAN , J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which R OBERTS , C. J., and T HOMAS , A LITO , S OTOMAYOR , G ORSUCH , K AVANAUGH , and B ARRETT , JJ., joined. B REYER , J., filed a dissenting opinion._________________

_________________ 1 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other form al errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 20–1143

DENISE A. BADGEROW, PETITIONER v. GREG WALTERS, ET AL

.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
[March 31, 2022]

J USTICE K AGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U. S. C. §1 et seq. , authorizes a party to an arbitra tion agreement to seek sev

eral kinds of assistance from a federal court. Under Section 4, for example, a party may ask the court to compel an ar

bitration proceeding, as the agreement contemplates. And under Sections 9 and 10, a party may apply to the court to confirm, or alternatively to vacate, an arbitral award. Yet the federal courts, as we have often held, may or may not have jurisdiction to decide such a request. The Act’s authorization of a petition does not itself create jurisdiction. Rather, the federal court must have what we have called an “independent jurisdictional ba sis” to resolve the matter. Hall Street Associates, L. L. C. v. Mattel, Inc. , 552 U. S. 576, 582 (2008). In Vaden v. Discover Bank , 556 U. S. 49 (2009), we as

sessed whether there was a jurisd ictional basis to decide a Section 4 petition to compel arbitration by means of exam

ining the parties’ underlying dispute. The text of Section 4, we reasoned, instructs a federa l court to “look through” the2 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court petition to the “underlying substantive controversy” be

tween the parties—even though that controversy is not be

fore the court. Id. , at 62. If the underlying dispute falls within the court’s jurisdiction—for example, by presenting a federal question—then the cou rt may rule on the petition to compel. That is so regardless whether the petition alone could establish the court’s jurisdiction. The question presented here is whether that same “look

through” approach to jurisdicti on applies to requests to con

firm or vacate arbitral awards under the FAA’s Sections 9 and 10. We hold it does not. Those sections lack Section 4’s distinctive language directing a look-through, on which Vaden rested. Without that statutory instruction, a court may look only to the application actually submitted to it in assessing its jurisdiction.

I This case grows out of the arbitration of an employment dispute. Petitioner Denise Badgerow worked as a financial advisor for REJ Properties, a firm run by respondents Greg Walters, Thomas Meyer, and Ray Trosclair. (For ease of reference, we refer from now on only to Walters.) Badgerow’s contract required her to bring claims arising out of her employment to arbitration, rather than to court. So when she was (in her view, improperly) fired, she initi

ated an arbitration action against Walters, alleging unlaw

ful termination under both federal and state law. The ar

bitrators sided with Walter s, dismissing Badgerow’s claims. What happened afterward—when Badgerow refused to give up—created the jurisdictional issue we address today. Believing that fraud had tainted the arbitration proceeding, Badgerow sued Walters in Louisiana state court to vacate the arbitral decision. Walters responded by removing the case to Federal District Court— and, once there, applying to confirm the arbitral award. Finally, Badgerow moved to3 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court remand the case to state court, arguing that the federal court lacked jurisdiction over the parties’ requests—under Sections 10 and 9, respectively—to vacate or confirm the award. The District Court assessed its jurisdiction under the look through approach this Court adopted in Vaden v. Discover Bank . See 2019 WL 2611127, *1 (ED La., June 26, 2019). That approach, as just noted, allows a federal court to exer

cise jurisdiction over an FAA application when the parties’ underlying substantive dispute would have fallen within the court’s jurisdiction. See supra , at 1–2. The District Court acknowledged that Vaden involved a different kind of arbitration dispute: It concerned a petition to compel arbi

tration under the FAA’s Section 4, rather than an applica

tion to confirm or vacate an arbitral award under Section 9 or 10. And Vaden ’s “reasoning was grounded on specific text” in Section 4 that Sections 9 and 10 “do[ ] not contain.” 2019 WL 2611127, *2. But the court thought it should ap

ply the look-through approach anyway, so that “consistent jurisdictional principles” would govern all kinds of FAA ap

plications. Ibid . And under that approach, the court had jurisdiction because Badgerow’s underlying employment action raised federal-law claims. The court thus went on to resolve the dispute over whet her fraud had infected the ar

bitration proceeding. Finding it had not, the court granted Walters’s application to confir m, and denied Badgerow’s ap

plication to vacate, the arbitral award. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s finding of jurisdiction, relying on a just-issued Circuit precedent. See 975 F. 3d 469, 472– 474 (2020) (citing Quezada v. Bechtel OG&C Constr. Servs.

, Inc. , 946 F. 3d 837, 843 (2020)). In that decision, the Fifth Circuit had echoed the reasoning of the District Court here.Yes, the language of Section 4 directing use of the lookthrough approach “is in fact absent in” the FAA’s other sec

-4 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court tions. 946 F. 3d, at 842. But, the court continued, a “prin

ciple of uniformity” applying to the FAA “dictates using the same approach for determining jurisdiction under each sec

tion of the statute.” Ibid. ; but see id. , at 845–846 (Ho, J., dissenting) (rejecting that asserted principle in favor of “[f ]idelity to text”). As applied to this case, that analysis meant that the district court had jurisdiction over Walters’s Section 9 and Badgerow’s Section 10 applications. Courts have divided over whether the look-through ap

proach used in Vaden can establish jurisdiction in a case like this one—when the applic ation before the court seeks not to compel arbitration under Section 4 but to confirm, vacate, or modify an arbitral award under other sections of the FAA. 1 We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 593 U. S. ___ (2021), and now reverse the judgment below.

II
The district courts of the United States are courts of lim

ited jurisdiction, defined (wit hin constitutional bounds) by federal statute. See, e.g. , Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of America , 511 U. S. 375, 377 (1994). Congress has granted those courts jurisdiction over two main kinds of cases. District courts have power to decide diversity cases—suits between citizens of different States as to any matter valued at more than $75,000. See 28 U. S. C. §1332(a). And they have powe r to decide federal-question cases—suits “arising under” federal law. §1331. Typically,

——————

1 Compare Quezada v. Bechtel OG&C Constr. Servs., Inc. , 946 F. 3d 837, 843 (CA5 2020) (holding that the look-through approach applies to applications to confirm, vacate, or modify an arbitral award); Ortiz-Espi

nosa v. BBVA Securities of P. R., Inc. , 852 F. 3d 36, 47 (CA1 2017) (same); Doscher v. Sea Port Group Securities, LLC , 832 F. 3d 372, 381–388 (CA2 2016) (same); McCormick v. America Online, Inc. , 909 F. 3d 677, 680– 684 (CA4 2018) (same), with Goldman v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

, 834 F. 3d 242, 252–255 (CA3 2016) (holding that the look-through ap

proach does not apply to those applications); Magruder v. Fidelity Bro

kerage Servs. , 818 F. 3d 285, 287–289 (CA7 2016) (same).5 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court

an action arises under federal law if that law “creates the cause of action asserted.” Gunn v. Minton , 568 U. S. 251, 257 (2013). So when federal law authorizes the action, the party bringing it—once again, typically—gets to go to fed

eral court. But that is not necessarily true of FAA-created arbitra

tion actions. As noted above, the FAA authorizes parties to arbitration agreements to file specified actions in federal court—most prominently, peti tions to compel arbitration (under Section 4) and applications to confirm, vacate, or modify arbitral awards (under Sections 9 through 11). See

supra , at 1. But those provisions, this Court has held, do not themselves support fe deral jurisdiction. See Hall Street , 552 U. S., at 581–582; Vaden , 556 U. S., at 59. (Were it otherwise, every arbitration in the country, however dis

tant from federal concerns, coul d wind up in federal district court.) A federal court may en tertain an action brought un

der the FAA only if the action has an “independent jurisdic

tional basis.” Hall Street , 552 U. S., at 582. That means an applicant seeking, for example, to vacate an arbitral award under Section 10 must identify a grant of jurisdiction, apart from Section 10 itself, conferring “access to a federal fo

rum.” Vaden , 556 U. S., at 59. If she cannot, the action belongs in state court. The FAA requires those courts, too, to honor arbitration agreemen ts; and we have long recog

nized their “prominent role ” in arbitral enforcement. Ibid. ;

see id., at 71; Southland Corp. v. Keating , 465 U. S. 1, 12– 16 (1984). 2

——————

2 This Court has held that the FAA’s core substantive requirement— Section 2’s command to enforce arbitration agreements like other con

tracts—applies in state courts, just as it does in federal courts. See Southland Corp. , 465 U. S., at 12–16. We have never decided whether the FAA’s more procedural provis ions, including Sections 4 and 9 through 11, also apply in state courts. See Vaden , 556 U. S., at 71, n. 20; see also post, at 7 (B REYER , J., dissenting) (expressing concern that they do not). But we have made clear that Section 2 “carries with it” a duty for States to provide certain enforcement mechanisms equivalent to the6 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court

The issue here is about where a federal court should look to determine whether an action brought under Section 9 or 10 has an independent jurisdictional basis. An obvious place is the face of the application itself. If it shows that the contending parties are citize ns of different States (with over $75,000 in dispute), then §1332(a) gives the court di

versity jurisdiction. Or if it alleges that federal law (beyond Section 9 or 10 itself ) entitles the applicant to relief, then §1331 gives the court federal-question jurisdiction. But those possibilities do Walters no good. He and Badgerow are from the same State. And their applications raise no federal issue. Recall that the two are now contesting not the legality of Badgerow’s firing but the enforceability of an arbitral award. That award is no more than a contractual resolution of the parties’ dispute—a way of settling legal claims. See Vaden , 556 U. S., at 63. And quarrels about legal settlements—even settlemen ts of federal claims—typ

ically involve only state law, like disagreements about other contracts. See Kokkonen , 511 U. S., at 378–382. So the Dis

trict Court here, as Walters recognizes, had to go beyond the face of the Section 9 and 10 applications to find a basis for jurisdiction. See Brief for Respondents 26–27. It had to proceed downward to Badgerow’s employment action, where a federal-law claim satisfying §1331 indeed exists. In other words, the court had to look through the Section 9 and 10 applications to the underlying substantive dispute, although that dispute was not before it. Could the court do so?

—————— FAA’s. See Vaden , 556 U. S., at 71 (referring specifically to Sections 3 and 4). And most, if not all, States in fact provide procedural vehicles, similar to those in the FAA, to en force arbitration agreements—includ

ing, as here, to resolve post-arbitration disputes by means of confirming, modifying, or vacating arbitral awards. See, e.g., Revised Uniform Arbi

tration Act of 2000 §§22–24, 7 U. L. A. 26 (2009) (adopted in 21 States and the District of Columbia); Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. §§1285–1287.6 (West 2022); N. Y. Civ. Prac. Law Ann. §§7510–7511 (West 2022).7 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court

In Vaden, this Court approved the look-through approach for a Section 4 petition, relying on that section’s express language. Under Section 4, a party to an arbitration agree

ment may petition for an order to compel arbitration in a “United States district court wh ich, save for [the arbitra

tion] agreement, would have jurisdiction” over “the contro

versy between the parties.” 3 That text, we stated, “drives our conclusion that a federal court should determine its ju

risdiction by ‘looking through’ a §4 petition to the underly

ing substantive controversy”—to see, for example, if that dispute “ ‘arises under’ federal law.” 556 U. S., at 62. To show why that is so, we proceeded methodically through Section 4’s wording. “T he phrase ‘save for [the ar

bitration] agreement,’ ” we began, “indicates that the dis

trict court should assume the absence of the arbitration agreement and determine whet her [the court] ‘would have jurisdiction . . .’ without it.” Ibid . (first alteration in origi

nal). But “[j]urisdiction over what?” Ibid. “The text of Sec

tion 4,” we continued, “refers us to ‘the controversy between the parties.’ ” Ibid. And that “controversy,” we explained, could not mean the dispute before the court about “the ex

istence or applicability of an arbitration agreement”; after all, the preceding save-for claus e had just “direct[ed] courts” to assume that agreement away. Id. , at 63. The “contro

versy between the parties” instead had to mean their “un

derlying substantive controversy.” Id. , at 62 (internal quo

tation marks omitted). “Attending to the language” of

——————

3 In full, the relevant sentence of Section 4 reads: “A party aggrieved by the alleged failure, neglect, or re fusal of another to arbitrate under a written agreement for arbitration may petition any United States dis

trict court which, save for such agr eement, would have jurisdiction under title 28, in a civil action or in admi ralty of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties, for an order directing that such arbitration proceed in the manner provided for in such agree

ment.”8 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court Section 4 thus required “approv[ing] the ‘look through’ ap

proach” as a means of assessing jurisdiction over petitions to compel arbitration. Ibid. The opposite view was not merely faulty; it was “textual[ly] implausib[le].” Id. , at 65. But Sections 9 and 10, in addressing applications to con

firm or vacate an arbitral award, contain none of the statu

tory language on which Vaden relied. Most notably, those provisions do not have Section 4’s “save for” clause. They do not instruct a court to imagine a world without an arbi

tration agreement, and to ask whether it would then have jurisdiction over the parties’ dispute. Indeed, Sections 9 and 10 do not mention the court’s subject-matter jurisdic

tion at all. 4 So under ordinary principles of statutory con

struction, the look-through method for assessing jurisdic

tion should not apply. “[W]hen Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act,” we generally take the choice to be deliberate. Collins v. Yellen , 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 23) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have no warrant to redline the FAA, importing Section 4’s consequential language into provisions containing noth

ing like it. Congress could have replicated Section 4’s lookthrough instruction in Sections 9 and 10. Or for that mat

ter, it could have drafted a global look-through provision, applying the approach throughout the FAA. But Congress did neither. And its decision governs.

——————

4 Section 9 provides, in relevant part , that if an arbitration agreement states “that a judgment of the court shall be entered upon the [arbitral] award,” then a “party to the arbitration may apply” within a year to the federal court located where the award was made (or any other court spec

ified) “for an order confirming the award, and thereupon the court must grant such an order unless the award is vacated, modified, or corrected” as the Act otherwise prescribes.

Section 10 provides, in relevant part , that a United States court “may make an order vacating the award upon the application of any party to the arbitration” if the award is tain ted in any of four specified ways.9 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court
Nothing in that conclusion changes because a jurisdic

tional question is before us. The federal “district courts may not exercise jurisdiction absent a statutory basis.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc. , 545 U. S. 546, 552 (2005). And the jurisdiction Congress confers may not “be expanded by judicial decree.” Kokkonen , 511 U. S., at 377. Those bedrock principles prevent us from pulling look-through jurisdiction out of thin air—from somehow finding, without textual support, that federal courts may use the method to resolve various state-law-based, non-di

verse Section 9 and 10 applications. The look-through rule is a highly unusual one: It locates jurisdiction not in the ac

tion actually before the cou rt, but in another controversy neither there nor ever meant to be. We recognized that rule in Vaden because careful analysis of Section 4’s text showed that Congress wanted it applied to petitions brought under that provision. See 556 U. S., at 62–65. But Congress has not so directed in Sections 9 and 10. Congress has not au

thorized a federal court to adjudicate a Section 9 or 10 ap

plication just because the contractual dispute it presents grew out of arbitrating different claims, turning on differ

ent law, that (save for the parties’ agreement) could have been brought in federal court. And because a statutory ba

sis for look-through jurisdiction is lacking here, we cannot reach the same result as in Vaden : That would indeed be jurisdictional “expan[sion] by judicial decree.” Kokkonen

, 511 U. S., at 377. Walters contests that view of the statute. Unlike the Courts of Appeals to have ad opted his position, including the Fifth Circuit below, see supra , at 3–4, he offers a read

ing of the FAA’s text to justify exercising jurisdiction here. 5

——————

5 By contrast, the dissenting opinion reads, from start to finish, more like the decisions of the courts belo w: Even when that opinion finally turns to the FAA’s text, it emphas izes something much like the lower courts’ uniformity principle. See post, at 9–11; supra, at 3–4. Because, the dissent says, all the FAA’s sectio ns “describe connected components10 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court Walters’s argument comes in two parts. First, Walters says, the language in Section 4 that Vaden construed does not in fact authorize the use of the look-through jurisdic

tional method. In his view, that sentence is only a capa

cious “ venue provision,” serving to “expand[ ] venue to the limits of [federal] jurisdiction” (and thus to give an appli

cant a broad choice among federal courts possessing juris

diction). Brief for Respondents 12, 23. Second, Walters claims that Section 6 provides the basis for an FAA-wide look-through jurisdictional ru le. Under Section 6, any FAA application “shall be made and heard in the manner pro

vided by law for the making and hearing of motions.” That provision, Walters claims, requires use of the look-through approach because “[f]ederal courts have jurisdiction over motions when they have jurisdiction over the underlying action.” Brief for Respondents 19 (internal quotation marks omitted). So to recap Walter s’s theory: Section 4 does not establish any jurisdictional rule for applications to compel in particular, while Section 6 establishes the look-through jurisdictional rule for all kinds of FAA applications. But Walters’s understanding of Section 4 does not com

port with what it says. The language of that provision never mentions “venue”; it refe rs only to “jurisdiction.” That is a signal, sharp and clear, that the section provides a jurisdictional rule. And even suppose (against all odds) that Congress had meant to st ate the venue rule Walters proposes without ever using the word “venue.” In that

—————— of a single matter” (namely, a “cou rt’s arbitration-related enforcement power”), and because those provisio ns serve the same “general pur

pose[ ],” the statute “permits” a court to hold that “Section 4’s jurisdic

tional rule should apply throughout.” Post, at 9–12. But the (nigh-inev

itable) connection among a statute’s di verse provisions does not give a court carte blanche to move rules or concepts from any one section to any or all others. For the reasons alread y stated, we cannot read this non

uniform statute—setting out a jurisdic tional rule in one section but con

spicuously omitting it in all others —as though it applied a single rule throughout. See supra, at 8–9.11 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court event, Congress could have si mply permitted filing the pe

tition in any district court with jurisdiction (or even more simply—because a court can never act without jurisdic

tion—in any district court). Given that (in Walters’s view) the jurisdictional rule comes from another provision, Con

gress would not have needed to (again) spell out its content.But spelling out the rule’s content—by describing the lookthrough method—is exactly what Section 4 does. That de

scription can serve one purpose only: to establish jurisdic

tion where it would otherwise not exist. And that is how Vaden understood Section 4. Our deci

sion, like the relevant text, ne ver once referred to venue. Instead, we spoke, throughout the opinion, of the way Sec

tion 4 provides for jurisdiction. We formulated the question presented as whether the dis trict court could “exercise ju

risdiction over [the party’s] §4 petition.” 556 U. S., at 53;

see id. , at 57 (stating that “[w]e granted certiorari” to decide whether district courts could use the look-through method “to determine whether federal-qu estion jurisdiction exists over [a] §4 petition”). And we framed our holding as about jurisdiction: “[A] federal court should determine its jurisdic

tion by ‘looking through’ a §4 petition.” Id. , at 62; see id.

, at 72 (R OBERTS , C. J., dissenting) (differing about the rule’s application, but agreeing that a court presented with a Sec

tion 4 petition should use the look-through method “in de

termining whether it has jurisdiction”). In short, Section 4’s “save for” text “dr[ove] our conclusion” not about venue, but about “jurisdiction.” Id. , at 62. And so that text, as shown above, contradicts Walters’s position—for it appears in Section 4 alone, rather than also in Sections 9 and 10. See supra , at 8–9. Walters’s theory fares no be tter in construing Section 6’s mention of motions to prescribe a look-through rule for the whole FAA. Here, Walters commits the opposite of his fault in reading Section 4: He now reads a provision containing12 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court no express reference to jurisdi ction in fact to set out a juris

dictional rule. There may be rare contexts in which courts can, without such a reference, “infer that Congress has ex

panded our jurisdiction”—but this is not one. Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transp. , 483 U. S. 468, 474 (1987) (plurality opinion). The look-through method, as noted before, is a jurisdictional outlier. See supra , at 9. For Congress to prescribe it by tellin g courts, a la Section 6, to treat FAA applications like moti ons in other kinds of litiga

tion would be not just oblique but simply bizarre. Courts, after all, do not possess jurisd iction to decide ordinary mo

tions by virtue of the look-through method. A motion (un

like a typical FAA application) is part of a case actually in court. Jurisdiction to decide the case includes jurisdiction to decide the motion; there is no need to “look through” the motion in search of a jurisdicti onal basis outside the court. And if the look-through rule does not apply to motions, then Section 6’s reference to mo tions cannot direct the lookthrough rule. We have formerly described that provision’s function as something different: Section 6, we said, ensures that FAA applications “get streamlined treatment”—a kind of “expedited review,” as compared to what a party would receive if she brought a normal contract suit. Hall Street

, 552 U. S., at 582, and n. 3. However hard we squint, we cannot also discern in Section 6 an FAA-wide look-through rule; the only such rule in the FAA, applying only to peti

tions to compel, resides in Section 4. Walters’s more thought-pr ovoking arguments sound not in text but in policy. Here, Walters—now joined by the dis

sent—preaches the virtues of adopting look-through as a “single, easy-to-apply jurisdictional test” that will produce “sensible” results. Brief for Respondents 28 (internal quo

tation marks omitted); see post, at 4–9 (opinion of B REYER , J.) (lauding the “advantages” of look-through’s “practical consequences”). First, Walters says, a uniform jurisdic

-13 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court tional rule, applying to all FAA applications alike, will nec

essarily promote “administra tive simplicity” because a court will not have to figure out which rule to apply. Brief for Respondents 27. Second, he claims, the look-through rule is “easier to apply” than a test that would ground juris

diction on the face of the FAA application itself. Id., at 28 (internal quotation marks omitted). In particular, he says, the latter approach confronts courts with “hard questions” about how to determine diversit y jurisdiction (including its amount-in-controversy component) across a range of set

tings—for the Section 9 and 10 applications at issue here, as well as for Section 5 and 7 petitions (obviously not at is

sue) to appoint arbitrators or compel the presence of wit

nesses. Id., at 41. (The dissent’s vaunted practical “ad

vantages” also mostly concer n avoiding those diversity issues. Post, at 4; see post , at 4–7.) 6 Finally, Walters con

tends that only the look-throu gh rule will provide federal courts with comprehensive con trol over the arbitration pro

cess, including the period after the award. The opposite po

sition, he says, will “close the federal courthouse doors to many” post-arbitration motions, even when they grow out of disputes raising “ exclusively federal claims.” Brief for Re

spondents 37, 46. Walters himself quotes back to us the topline answer to those theories, reflecting its obviousness: “Even the most formidable policy arguments cannot overcome a clear stat

utory directive.” Id. , at 44 (quoting BP p.l.c. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore , 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 12); alteration omitted). Walters’s (and the dissent’s) what-makes-best-sense assertions rest on the view that

——————

6 The dissent’s lead item in this vein concerns a Section 5 petition to appoint an arbitrator that is made “in tandem with” a Section 4 petition over which a federal co urt has jurisdiction. Post, at 5. Because Section 5 is not at issue here, we do not express any view about whether the relationship that the dissent hypothes izes would give the court jurisdic

tion over the appointment request.14 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court

“the FAA contains no” such clea r “directive” limiting lookthrough jurisdiction to Section 4. Brief for Respondents 44– 45; see post, at 10. Having rejected that view, we cannot find much relevance in his ideas, even if plausible, about the optimal jurisdictional rule for the FAA. “It is not for this Court to employ untethered notions of what might be good public policy to expand our jurisdiction.” Whitmore v. Arkansas , 495 U. S. 149, 161 (1990). However the pros and cons shake out, Congress has made its call. We will not impose uniformity on the statute’s non-uniform jurisdic

tional rules. And anyway, we think Walters oversells the superiority of his proposal. First, uniformity in and of itself provides no real advantage in this sphere. A court can tell in an in

stant whether an application arises under Section 4 or, as here, under Section 9 or 10; so it can also tell in an instant whether to apply the look-through method or the usual ju

risdictional rules. Second, the use of those ordinary rules— most notably, relating to di versity jurisdiction—is hardly beyond judicial capacity. Fe deral courts have faced, and federal courts have resolved, diversity questions for over two centuries, in diverse and ever-changing legal contexts. Throughout, they have developed workable rules; and we see no reason to think they will do differently here. Indeed, past practice belies Walters’s and the dissent’s gloomy pre

dictions. Although they spin out hypotheticals designed to make the project look ultra-confusing, they fail to identify any actual problems that have arisen from courts’ longstanding application of diversity standards to FAA ap

plications (without using look -through). And Walters’s so

lution does not even avoid the (purported) difficulty of which he complains. For he does not claim (nor could he) that look-through is the exclusive means of establishing federal jurisdiction. Even if the underlying action does not fall within a district court’s jurisdiction, the application still might do so—say, because the parties have changed, and15 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Opinion of the Court

are now diverse. See supra, at 6. So courts, on Walters’s own view, will still have to resolve questions about—and develop rules for—determinin g diversity in the FAA con

text. The difference is only one of degree—and too small, under any plausible theory of statutory interpretation, to adopt Walters’s proposal to rewrite the law. Finally, we can see why Congress chose to place fewer ar

bitration disputes in federal court than Walters wishes. The statutory plan, as suggested above, makes Section 9 and 10 applications conform to the normal—and sensible— judicial division of labor: The applications go to state, ra

ther than federal, courts when they raise claims between non-diverse parties involving state law. See supra , at 5–6. As Walters notes, those claims may have originated in the arbitration of a federal-law disp ute. But the underlying dis

pute is not now at issue. Rather, the application concerns the contractual rights provided in the arbitration agree

ment, generally governed by stat e law. And adjudication of such state-law contractual rights—as this Court has held in addressing a non-arbitration settlement of federal claims—typically belongs in state courts. See Kokkonen

, 511 U. S., at 381–382; supra , at 6. To be sure, Congress created an exception to those ordinary jurisdictional princi

ples for Section 4 petitions to co mpel. But it is one thing to make an exception, quite another to extend that exception everywhere. See post, at 8 (disregarding this point). As this Court has often said, the “preeminent” purpose of the FAA was to overcome some judges’ reluctance to enforce arbitra

tion agreements when a party tried to sue in court instead. E.g., Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. v. Byrd , 470 U. S. 213, 221 (1985). We have never detected a similar congressional worry about judges’ willingness to enforce arbitration awards already made. So Congress might well have thought an expansion of federal jurisdiction appropriate for petitions to compel alone. Applications about arbitral deci

sions could and should follow the normal rules.16 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Opinion of the Court
The result, as Walters laments, is to give state courts a significant role in implementing the FAA. But we have long recognized that feature of the statute. “[E]nforcement of the Act,” we have understood, “is left in large part to the state courts.” Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp. , 460 U. S. 1, 25, n. 32 (1983); see Vaden , 556 U. S., at 59; Hall Street , 552 U. S., at 582. As relevant here, Congress chose to respect the capacity of state courts to properly enforce arbitral awards. In our turn, we must re

spect that evident congressional choice.

* * * For the reasons stated, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered._________________

_________________ 1 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting 

## SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 20–1143

DENISE A. BADGEROW, PETITIONER v. GREG WALTERS, ET AL

.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
[March 31, 2022]

J USTICE B REYER , dissenting. When interpreting a statute, it is often helpful to consider not simply the statute’s literal words, but also the statute’s purposes and the likely consequences of our interpretation. Otherwise, we risk adopting an interpretation that, even if consistent with text, create s unnecessary complexity and confusion. That, I fear, is what the majority’s interpreta

tion here will do. I consequently dissent.

I The question presented arises in the context of the Fed

eral Arbitration Act (FAA). 9 U. S. C. §1 et seq. The ques

tion is technical and jurisdicti onal: How does a federal court determine whether it has jurisdiction to consider a motion to confirm or vacate an arbitration award? The FAA con

tains several sections that seem to empower a federal court to take certain specified acti ons related to arbitration pro

ceedings. These include Section 4, which gives “any United States district court” the power to “order” parties to a writ

ten arbitration agreement to “proceed” to arbitration; Sec

tion 5, which gives “the court” the power to “designate and appoint an arbitrator”; Section 7, which gives “the United States district court for the district” in which an arbitrator is sitting the power to “compel the attendance” of witnesses whom the arbitrator has “summoned”; Section 9, which2 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting gives “the United States court in and for the district within which” an arbitration award “was made” the power to enter an “order confirming the award”; Section 10, which gives “the United States court in and for the district wherein the [arbitration] award was made” the power to “make an order vacating the award”; and Section 11, which gives “the United States court in and for the district wherein the [ar

bitration] award was made” the power to “modif[y] or cor

rec[t] the award.” 9 U. S. C. §§4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11. (Here, as throughout, I have simplified the descriptions of the FAA’s sections; the Appendix, infra , contains the full relevant statutory language.) This case directly concerns jurisdic

tion under Sections 9 and 10 , but the Court’s reasoning applies to all the sections just mentioned. At first blush, one might wonder why there is any ques

tion about whether a federal co urt has jurisdiction to con

sider requests that it act pursuant to these sections. The sections’ language seems explicitly to give federal courts the power to take such actions. Why does that language itself not also grant jurisdiction to act? The answer, as the Court notes, is that we have held that the FAA’s “authorization of a petition does not itself create jurisdiction.” Ante , at 1. “Rather, the federal court must have what we have called an ‘independent jurisdictional basis’ to resolve the matter.” Ibid. (quoting Hall Street Associates

, L. L. C. v. Mattel

, Inc.

, 552 U. S. 576, 582 (2008)). We made clear how this works in Vaden v. Discover Bank

, 556 U. S. 49 (2009), a case involving Section 4. As just noted, Section 4 gives a dis trict court the power to order parties (who have entered into a written arbitration agree

ment) to submit to arbitration. We held “that a federal court should determine its jurisdiction by ‘looking through’ a §4 petition to the parties’ underlying substantive contro

versy.” Id ., at 62. The court asks whether it would have jurisdiction over that controversy, namely, whether that3 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting underlying substantive controversy involves a federal ques

tion or diversity (a dispute between parties from different States with a value of more than $75,000). See 28 U. S. C. §§1331, 1332. If so, then the federal court has jurisdiction over a Section 4 petition asking the court to order the par

ties to resolve that controversy in arbitration. The Vaden Court gave two reasons for adopting this “look-through” approach. The first, as the majority today emphasizes, was textual. See 556 U. S., at 62. Section 4 says that a party seeking arbitration may petition for an order compelling arbitration from “any United States district court which, save for [the arbitration] agreement , would have jurisdiction . . . in a civil action . . . of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties.” (Emphasis added.) The words “save for [the arbitration] agreement,” we rea

soned, tell a court not to find jurisdiction by looking to the petition to enforce the agreement itself, but instead to the underlying controversy between the parties. See id ., at 62– 63. The second reason, which th e majority today neglects, was practical. Id. , at 65. To find jurisdiction only where the petition to enforce an arbitration agreement itself es

tablished federal jurisdiction, we explained, would result in “curious practical consequences,” including unduly limiting the scope of Section 4 and hinging jurisdiction upon distinc

tions that were “ ‘totally artificial.’ ” Ibid. (quoting 1 I. MacNeil, R. Speidel, & T. Stipano wich, Federal Arbitration Law §9.2.3.3, p. 9:21 (1995) (hereinafter MacNeil)). Today, the majority holds that this look-through ap

proach does not apply to Section 9 or 10 because those sec

tions lack Section 4’s “save for” language. Ante , at 2. This reasoning necessarily extends to Sections 5, 7, and 11 as4 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting
well, for those sections, too, lack Sections 4’s “save for” lan

guage. Ibid. (“Without [Section 4’s] statutory instruction, a court may look only to the application actually submitted to it in assessing its jurisdiction”). Although this result may be consistent with the stat ute’s text, it creates what Vaden feared—curious consequences and artificial distinctions. See 556 U. S., at 65. It also creates what I fear will be con

sequences that are overly complex and impractical.

II I would use the look-through approach to determine ju

risdiction under each of the FAA’s related provisions—Sec

tions 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 11. Doing so would avoid the same kinds of “curious practical consequences” that drove the Vaden Court to adopt the look-through approach in the first place. Ibid. ; see also Cortez Byrd Chips

, Inc. v. Bill Harbert Constr. Co. , 529 U. S. 193, 202 (2000) (rejecting interpreta

tion of the FAA that “would create anomalous results”). Most notably, this approach would provide a harmonious and comparatively simple jurisdiction-determining rule— advantages that the majority’s jurisdictional scheme seems to lack. Cf. Hertz Corp. v. Friend , 559 U. S. 77, 94 (2010) (rejecting “[c]omplex jurisdictional tests” in favor of “straightforward” and “[s]imple jurisdictional rules”). Consider some of the likely consequences of the majority’s reading, which applies the look-through approach only to Section 4 (where the “save for” language appears), but not to the FAA’s other sections (where it does not appear). First , consider Section 5. That section says that, upon application of one of the parties to an arbitration agree

ment, “ the court shall designate and appoint an arbitrator.” 9 U. S. C. §5 (emphasis added). What happens when the look-through approach shows that the underlying contro

versy raises a federal question, but the application to ap

point an arbitrator raises no federal question and does not establish diversity? A party could ask a federal judge to5 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting

order arbitration under Section 4, but they could not then ask that same (or any other) federal judge to appoint an ar

bitrator for that very same arbitration under Section 5. That does not seem to be what Congress had in mind for these neighboring provisions—provisions that appear to as

sume that a judge can appoint an arbitrator in tandem with ordering parties to arbitration . Moreover, how is a federal court to determine, for divers ity jurisdiction purposes, the amount at stake in a motion to appoint an arbitrator with

out a look-through approach? Surely not by assessing the value of the arbitrator’s request for pay. Second , consider Section 7. It says that “upon petition the United States district court for the district in which” an arbitrator is sitting “may compel the attendance” of persons whom the arbitrator has “summoned.” §7. Suppose that the underlying substantive controversy does not qualify for federal jurisdiction, meaning that a federal court would not have jurisdiction to order arbitration under Section 4. If arbitration proceeds by other means, can a federal judge nonetheless compel the attendance of a witness at that ar

bitration, based on diversity juri sdiction, if a request to do so shows that the summoned witness lives out of State? If there are two witnesses, one in State and one out of State, can the federal judge compel the attendance of the second, but not the first? Why would Congress have wanted parties to toggle between federal and state court when seeking ju

dicial enforcement of summons issued during a single arbi

tration? And at a more basic level, who are the relevant parties to a Section 7 request when dete rmining, for diversity pur

poses, whether the Section 7 di spute is between citizens of different States? The arbitrator and summoned witness? The parties in arbitration? Only the “summoning” party and the witness? Compare Washington National Insurance Co. v. OBEX Group LLC , 958 F. 3d 126, 134 (CA2 2020)6 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting (evaluating diversity based on summoning party and wit

ness), with Amgen

, Inc. v. Kidney Center of Del. Cty. Ltd.

, 95 F. 3d 562, 567–568 (CA7 1996) (evaluating diversity based on parties in arbitration). And assume that a federal court finds it does have jurisdiction over a Section 7 request, even though the underlying controversy involves neither a federal question nor diversity. “Why would Congress have wanted federal courts to in tervene to enforce a subpoena issued in an arbitration proceeding involving a controversy that itself is not important enough, from a federalism standpoint, to warrant federal-court oversight?” Maine Community Health Options v. Albertsons Cos.

, 993 F. 3d 720, 726 (CA9 2021) (Watford, J., concurring). Moreover, diversity jurisdicti on requires not only that the relevant parties be from different States but also that the amount in controversy exceed $75,000. See 28 U. S. C. §1332(a). How does a federal judge determine whether summoning a witness is itself worth $75,000? By examin

ing the value of what the witness might say? By accounting for travel expenses? See Maine Community Health , 993 F. 3d, at 723–724. As courts have recognized, there is “very little case law to guide [them] in determining whether en

forcement of an arbitration subpoena against a third party will enable someone to recover more than $75,000 in an ar

bitration dispute with a different party.” Id. , at 726 (Wat

ford, J., concurring). These and other jurisdiction-related questions do not arise if a federal judge can simply follow Vaden ’s principle for all FAA motions: Look through the motions and determine whether there is federal jurisdiction over the underlying substantive controversy. See 556 U. S., at 62–63. Third , consider now Sections 9 and 10, the FAA sections directly before us, along with Section 11. Section 9 gives “the United States court in and for the district within which [an arbitration] award was made” the power to issue “an order confirming the award.” Section 10 gives the same7 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting court the power to “vacat[e]” the award for certain specified reasons. And Section 11 gives that court the power to “modif[y] or correc[t] the award.” Where the parties’ under

lying dispute involves a federal question (but the parties are not diverse), the majority holds that a party can ask a federal court to order arbitration under Section 4, but it cannot ask that same court to co nfirm, vacate, or modify the order resulting from that arbitration under Section 9, 10, or 11. But why prohibit a federal court from considering the results of the very arbitration it has ordered and is likely familiar with? Why force the parties to obtain relief—con

cerning arbitration of an underlying federal -question dispute—from a state court unfamiliar with the matter? Or suppose that a party asks a federal court to vacate an arbitration award under Section 10 because the arbitrator “refus[ed] to hear evidence pe rtinent and material to the controversy.” §10(a)(3). To determine at least one im

portant aspect of diversity jurisdiction—the amount in con

troversy—must the court not look to the underlying dis

pute? The same question arises with respect to a Section 11 motion to modify an arbitral award on the ground that it “is imperfect in matter of fo rm not affecting the merits of the controversy.” §11(c). The majority says that these and other problems require only that the parties bring their FAA requests to state
courts. Ante , at 15–16. But we cannot be sure that state courts have the same powers under the FAA that federal courts have. The FAA says nothing about state courts; it only explicitly mentions fede ral courts. See §7 (“United States district court”); §9 (“the United States court”); §10 (same); §11 (same). We have never held that the FAA pro

visions I have discussed apply in state courts, and at least one Member of this Court has concluded that they do not apply there. See, e.g. , DIRECTV

, Inc. v. Imburgia , 577 U. S. 47, 59 (2015) (T HOMAS , J., dissenting). State courts8 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting
have reached similar conclusions. See, e.g. , Cable Connec

tion

, Inc. v. DIRECTV

, Inc. , 44 Cal. 4th 1334, 1351, 190 P. 3d 586, 597 (2008) (holding that §§4, 10, and 11 apply only in federal court); In re Beck’s Superior Hybrids

, Inc.

, 940 N. E. 2d 352, 362–363 (Ind. App. 2011) (same for §7); Henderson v. Summerville Ford-Mercury Inc. , 405 S. C. 440, 450, 748 S. E. 2d 221, 226 (2013) (same for §9). Relatedly, the majority also notes, correctly, that Section 9, 10, and 11 disputes about the enforceability of arbitral awards “typically involve only state law.” Ante , at 6. It thus makes sense, the majority says, that these disputes would belong primarily in state court. See ante , at 15. But the same can be said for Section 4 disputes about the enforcea

bility of arbitration agreements. These, too, typically in

volve only questions of state la w. That the dispute does not implicate federal questions thus does not explain why Con

gress would have wanted more federal court involvement at the Section 4 stage than during the later stages. It may be possible to eliminate some of these problems by using a federal-question lawsuit or Section 4 motion as a jurisdictional anchor. If a party to an arbitration agree

ment files a lawsuit in federal court but then is ordered to resolve the claims in arbitration, the federal court may stay the suit and possibly retain jurisdiction over related FAA motions. See §3; Vaden , 556 U. S., at 65. Similarly, some courts have held that if a fede ral court adjudicates a Section 4 motion to order arbitration, the court retains jurisdiction over any subsequent, related FAA motions. See Maine Community Health , 993 F. 3d, at 725 (Watford, J., concur

ring); see also McCormick v. America Online

, Inc. , 909 F. 3d 677, 684 (CA4 2018). But, as Vaden points out, to turn ju

risdiction over these later motions on the presence or ab

sence of a federal lawsuit or Section 4 motion is to turn ju

risdiction on a “ ‘totally artificial distinction’ ”—particularly when the very purpose of arbitration is to avoid litigation. 556 U. S., at 65 (quoting 1 MacNeil §9.2.3.3, at 9:21).9 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting I relate these practical difficu lties in part to illustrate a more fundamental point. The majority has tried to split what is, or should be, a single jurisdictional atom—a single statute with connected parts, which parts give federal judges the power to facilitate a single arbitration proceed

ing from start to finish: to order arbitration; appoint an arbitrator; summon witnesses; and confirm, vacate, or mod

ify an arbitration award. The need for simplicity, compre

hension, workability, and fairness all suggest that these in

terrelated provisions should follow the same basic jurisdictional approach, namely, as Vaden explains, the look-through approach.

III The majority’s interpretation is also at odds with what this Court has said about the purposes underlying the FAA. We have recognized that the statute reflects a clear “ ‘policy of rapid and unobstructed enforcement of arbitration agree

ments.’ ” Cortez Byrd Chips , 529 U. S., at 201 (quoting Mo

ses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Constr. Corp.

, 460 U. S. 1, 23 (1983)); see also id. , at 22 (“Congress’ clear intent, in the Arbitration Act, [was] to move the parties to an arbitrable dispute out of court and into arbitration as quickly and easily as possible”). We have thus interpreted the FAA to avoid “unneces

sarily complicating the law and breeding litigation from a statute that seeks to avoid it.” Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos.

v. Dobson , 513 U. S. 265, 275 (1995). “Why,” we asked, “would Congress intend a test that risks the very kind of costs and delay through litigation . . . that Congress wrote the Act to help the parties avoid?” Id. , at 278. In other words, the FAA is a “sphere” in which “uniformity in and of itself provides [a] real advantage.” Ante , at 14.

IV The majority’s main point is straightforward: The text of10 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting the statute compels the result. As the majority rightly points out, we cannot disregard the statutory text or “over

come a clear statutory directive.” Ante , at 13 (quoting Brief for Respondents 44). A statute that says it applies only to “fish” does not apply to turnips. The majority also rightly points out that the “save for” language setting forth the look-through approach appears only in Section 4, and does not appear in any of the later sections. That fact, however, does not produce the “clear statutory directive” upon which the majori ty relies. Nothing in the text prohibits us from applying Section 4’s look-through ap

proach to the succeeding sections. The statute does not say that Section 4’s jurisdictional rule applies only to Section 4, or that the same look-through approach does not apply else

where. Nor does any other section provide its own jurisdic

tional rule that would suggest Section 4’s rule should not apply there. Moreover, when we consider Section 4’s text setting forth the look-through approach, we “consider not only the bare meaning of the word[s] but also [their] placement and pur

pose in the statutory scheme.” Bailey v. United States , 516 U. S. 137, 145 (1995), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Welch v. United States , 578 U. S. 120, 133 (2016). Various aspects of the FAA’s text and structure suggest that Section 4’s jurisd ictional rule should apply throughout. Section 5, for example, which grants the power to appoint an arbitrator, simply refers to “the court.” Those words, most naturally read, refer to the same court to which the immediately preceding section—Section 4—refers: a “United States district court” with jurisdiction as deter

mined by the look-through ap proach. Requests under the FAA’s various sections are also generally described in the text as “applications” or “motio ns.” See §4 (“application”); §5 (same); §9 (same); §10 (same); §11 (same); see also §6; §12 (“motion to vacate, modify , or correct”); §13 (“applica

tion to confirm, modify, or co rrect”). This implies that the11 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting requests are all constituent parts of one broader enforce

ment proceeding, not standalone disputes meriting individ

ual jurisdictional inquiries. See, e.g. , In re Wild , 994 F. 3d 1244, 1257 (CA11 2021) (en banc) (“the term ‘motion’ has

never been commonly understood to denote a vehicle for in

itiating a new and freestanding lawsuit”); A Modern Dic

tionary of the English Language 446 (1911) (“motion in court” means “an application to a court . . . to have a rule or order made which is necessary to the progress of the ac

tion”). And, more importantly, all the sections describe con

nected components of a sing le matter: a federal court’s arbitration-related enforcement power. One can read these sections as a single whole, with each section providing one enforcement tool, and one section—Section 4—providing both an enforcement tool and a jurisdictional rule applica

ble to the entire toolbox. Read this way, the FAA provides one set of complementary mechanisms through which a fed

eral court might facilitate a single arbitration—but only when the underlying substantive controversy is one that, jurisdictionally speaking, could be brought in a federal court had the parties not agreed to arbitrate. There is no language in any of the sections that states, or suggests, that we cannot interpret the Act in this way. In brief, the text does not prevent us from reading the statute in a way that better reflects the statute’s structure and better fulfills the statute’s basic purposes. See Allied Bruce , 513 U. S., at 279 (adopting interpretation of FAA that “the statute’s language permits” and that is more con

sistent with “[t]he Act’s history”); Pierce v. Underwood , 487 U. S. 552, 563 (1988) (adopting outcome “that the text of the statute permits, and sound judicial administration coun

sels”).

V The FAA’s legislative history reinforces the view of the12 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

B REYER , J., dissenting statute that I have just described. The Senate Report on the bill that became the FAA refers to the FAA’s general purposes. It makes clear Congress’ hope to avoid proce

dural complexity. It refers to parties’ “desire to avoid the delay and expense of litigation.” S. Rep. No. 536, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1924). Proponents of the bill thought it would successfully serve that purpose because it would pro

vide “very simple machinery”; “simplify legal matters”; offer “speedy” and “plain justice”; and allow “no opportunity for technical procedure.” Joint Hearings on S. 1005 et al. be

fore the Subcommittees of the Committees on the Judiciary, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 16, 26, 27, 36 (1924) (hereinafter Joint Hearings). These general purposes support a simplified ju

risdictional rule. The language of the House Report suggests more. It sug

gests that the bill created a single jurisdictional procedure, not a set of different procedures with distinct jurisdictional rules. The Report says that the bill “provides a procedure in the Federal courts for” enforcement of arbitration agree

ments. H. R. Rep. No. 96, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1924) (emphasis added). “ The procedure ,” the Report continues, “is very simple, . . . reducing technicality, delay, and ex

pense . . . .” Ibid. (emphasis added). That singular proce

dure, the Report explains, encompasses not only the initial request for a federal court to order arbitration under Sec

tion 4, but subsequent requests to vacate or modify an arbi

tration award under Sections 10 and 11 as well. See ibid. The principal drafter of the bill made the same point yet more explicitly. He testified that under the FAA, “Federal courts are given jurisdiction to enforce [arbitration] agree

ments whenever

. . . they would normally have jurisdiction of a controversy between the parties .” Joint Hearings 34 (statement of Julius H. Cohen) (emphasis added). Immedi

ately following, he said that “such enforcement” includes the power to appoint arbitrators under Section 5, which, of course, lacks Section 4’s “save for” language. Ibid. And he13 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

B REYER , J., dissenting
then proceeded to discuss the FAA’s other sections, all with

out suggesting that their juri sdictional requirements were any different. Ibid. ; see also id. , at 35–36. Together, this history reinforces the interpretation of the statute that I would adopt. It suggests that Congress in

tended a single approach for de termining jurisdiction of the FAA’s interrelated enforcement mechanisms, not one ap

proach for the mechanism provided in Section 4 and a dif

ferent approach for the mechanisms provided in all other sections.

* * * In this dissent I hope to have provided an example of what it means to say that we do not interpret a statute’s words “in a vacuum.” Abramski v. United States , 573 U. S. 169, 179 (2014). Rather, we should interpret those words “with reference to the statutory context, structure, history and purpose[,] . . . not to mention common sense.” Ibid. (in

ternal quotation marks omitte d). Here, these considera

tions all favor a uniform look-through approach. And the statute’s language permits that approach. Interpretation of a statute must, of course, be consistent with its text. But looking solely to the text, and with a single-minded focus on individual words in the text, will sometimes lead to an in

terpretation at odds with the statute as a whole. And I fear that is what has happened in this case. I suggest that by considering not only the text, but con

text, structure, history, purpose, and common sense, we would read the statute here in a different way. That way would connect the statute more directly with the area of law, and of human life, that it concerns. And it would allow the statute, and the law, to work better and more simply for those whom it is meant to serve. With respect, I dissent.B REYER , J., dissenting 14 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Appendix to opinion of B REYER , J.

APPENDIX

9 U. S. C. §§4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11

“§4. Failure to arbitrate under agreement; petition to United States court having jurisdiction for order to compel arbitration; notice and service thereof; hearing and deter

mination “A party aggrieved by the al leged failure, neglect, or re

fusal of another to arbitrate under a written agreement for arbitration may petition any United States district court which, save for such agreement, would have jurisdiction un

der title 28, in a civil action or in admiralty of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties, for an order directing that such arbitration proceed in the manner provided for in such agreement. Five days’ notice in writing of such app lication shall be served upon the party in default. Service thereof shall be made in the manner provided by the Federa l Rules of Civil Procedure. The court shall hear the parties, and upon being satisfied that the making of the agreement for arbitration or the fail

ure to comply therewith is not in issue, the court shall make an order directing the parties to proceed to arbitration in accordance with the terms of the agreement. The hearing and proceedings, under such agreement, shall be within the district in which the petition for an order directing such ar

bitration is filed. If the making of the arbitration agreement or the failure, neglect, or refusal to perform the same be in issue, the court shall proceed summarily to the trial thereof. If no jury trial be demanded by the party alleged to be in default, or if the matter in dispute is within admiralty ju

risdiction, the court shall hear and determine such issue. Where such an issue is raised, the party alleged to be in default may, except in cases of admiralty, on or before the return day of the notice of application, demand a jury trial of such issue, and upon such demand the court shall makeB REYER , J., dissenting 15 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Appendix to opinion of B REYER , J. an order referring the issue or issues to a jury in the man

ner provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or may specially call a jury for that purpose. If the jury find that no agreement in writing for arbitration was made or that there is no default in proceeding thereunder, the pro

ceeding shall be dismissed. If the jury find that an agree

ment for arbitration was made in writing and that there is a default in proceeding thereunder, the court shall make an order summarily directing the parties to proceed with the arbitration in accordance with the terms thereof.”

“§5. Appointment of arbitrators or umpire “If in the agreement provision be made for a method of naming or appointing an arbitrator or arbitrators or an um

pire, such method shall be followed; but if no method be pro

vided therein, or if a method be provided and any party thereto shall fail to avail himself of such method, or if for any other reason there shall be a lapse in the naming of an arbitrator or arbitrators or umpire, or in filling a vacancy, then upon the application of either party to the controversy the court shall designate and appoint an arbitrator or arbi

trators or umpire, as the case may require, who shall act under the said agreement with the same force and effect as if he or they had been spec ifically named therein; and un

less otherwise provided in the agreement the arbitration shall be by a single arbitrator.”

“§7. Witnesses before arbitra tors; fees; compelling attend

ance “The arbitrators selected eith er as prescribed in this title or otherwise, or a majority of them, may summon in writing any person to attend before them or any of them as a wit

ness and in a proper case to bring with him or them any book, record, document, or paper which may be deemed ma

terial as evidence in the case. The fees for such attendance shall be the same as the fees of witnesses before masters ofB REYER , J., dissenting 16 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Appendix to opinion of B REYER , J.

the United States courts. Said summons shall issue in the name of the arbitrator or arbitrators, or a majority of them, and shall be signed by the arbitrators, or a majority of them, and shall be directed to the said person and shall be served in the same manner as subpoenas to appear and testify be

fore the court; if any person or persons so summoned to tes

tify shall refuse or neglect to obey said summons, upon pe

tition the United States dis trict court for the district in which such arbitrators, or a majority of them, are sitting may compel the attendance of such person or persons before said arbitrator or arbitrators, or punish said person or per

sons for contempt in the same manner provided by law for securing the attendance of witnesses or their punishment for neglect or refusal to attend in the courts of the United States.”

“§9. Award of arbitrators; confirmation; jurisdiction; proce

dure “If the parties in their agreement have agreed that a judgment of the court shall be entered upon the award made pursuant to the arbitration, and shall specify the court, then at any time within one year after the award is made any party to the arbitration may apply to the court so specified for an order confirming the award, and thereupon the court must grant such an order unless the award is va

cated, modified, or corrected as prescribed in sections 10 and 11 of this title. If no cou rt is specified in the agreement of the parties, then such application may be made to the United States court in and for the district within which such award was made. Notice of the application shall be served upon the adverse party, and thereupon the court shall have jurisdiction of such party as though he had ap

peared generally in the proceeding. If the adverse party is a resident of the district within which the award was made, such service shall be made upon the adverse party or his attorney as prescribed by law fo r service of notice of motionB REYER , J., dissenting 17 Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022)

Appendix to opinion of B REYER , J. in an action in the same court. If the adverse party shall be a nonresident, then the notice of the application shall be served by the marshal of any district within which the ad

verse party may be found in like manner as other process of the court.”

“§10. Same; vacation; grounds; rehearing “(a) In any of the following cases the United States court in and for the district wherein the award was made may make an order vacating the award upon the application of any party to the arbitration— “(1) where the award was procured by corruption, fraud, or undue means; “(2) where there was evident partiality or corruption in the arbitrators, or either of them; “(3) where the arbitrators were guilty of misconduct in refusing to postpone the hearing, upon sufficient cause shown, or in refusing to hear evidence pertinent and mate

rial to the controversy; or of any other misbehavior by which the rights of any party have been prejudiced; or “(4) where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made. “(b) If an award is vacated and the time within which the agreement required the award to be made has not expired, the court may, in its discreti on, direct a rehearing by the arbitrators. “(c) The United States district court for the district wherein an award was made that was issued pursuant to section 580 of title 5 may make an order vacating the award upon the application of a person, other than a party to the arbitration, who is adversely affected or aggrieved by the award, if the use of arbitration or the award is clearly in

consistent with the factors se t forth in section 572 of title 5.”B REYER , J., dissenting 18 BADGEROW v. WALTERS

Appendix to opinion of B REYER , J. “§11. Same; modification or correction; grounds; order “In either of the following cases the United States court in and for the district wherein the award was made may make an order modifying or correcting the award upon the application of any party to the arbitration— “(a) Where there was an evident material miscalculation of figures or an evident materi al mistake in the description of any person, thing, or property referred to in the award. “(b) Where the arbitrators have awarded upon a matter not submitted to them, unless it is a matter not affecting the merits of the decision upon the matter submitted. “(c) Where the award is imperfect in matter of form not affecting the merits of the controversy. The order may modify and correct the award, so as to effect the intent thereof and promote justice between the parties.”