Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-105_5536.pdf
Page Number: 28

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

15 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

and  throw  up  some  objection—to  venue,  jurisdiction,  or  a 
dispositive element of the merits—to trigger a mandatory 
stay.  For plaintiffs, then, every preliminary-injunction mo-
tion becomes a trap: Even if the motion is granted, the de-
fendant  can  take  that  opportunity  to  stop  the  trial  court 
proceedings in their tracks.

Facing  these  destabilizing  consequences,  the  majority 
stops short of following its own reasoning to that ominous 
conclusion.    Today’s  holding  reaches  only  arbitration  ap-
peals under §16(a).  Ante, at 1, 7.  And it might well be that 
the  concerns  motivating  today’s  mandatory-general-stay 
rule do not extend beyond arbitration.  So the majority will 
not  commit,  for  example,  to  concluding  that  appeals  over 
non-arbitration  forum-selection  clauses  warrant  the  same 
mandatory stay.  Ante, at 9.   

I agree with that hesitation—even one step further down 
this path is much too far.  The mandatory-general-stay rule
that the Court manufactures is unmoored from Congress’s
commands  and  this  Court’s  precedent.    And  the  windfall 
that the Court gives to defendants seeking arbitration, pref-
erencing their interests over all others, is entirely unwar-
ranted.  The Court now mandates that result no matter how 
unjust  that  outcome  is,  according  to  traditional  equitable 
standards, in a given case.  This endeavor is unfounded, un-
wise, and—most fundamentally—not our role.