Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-105_5536.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

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

7 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

yet another case, the rule is that the trial court has “author-
ity” during an interlocutory appeal “to take further proceed-
ings in the cause, unless in its discretion it orders them to
be  stayed,  pending  the  appeal.”    Smith  v.  Vulcan  Iron 
Works, 165 U. S. 518, 525 (1897).  That authority is “recog-
nized” by the 1891 Act but existed already as a traditional
matter, “often exercised by other courts of chancery.”  Ibid. 
This  was  the  background  against  which  Congress  en-
acted §16.  And—importantly—courts understood stays as 
discretionary with respect to interlocutory appeals concern-
ing  arbitrability.  Before  Congress  enacted  §16,  parties 
brought  interlocutory  arbitrability  appeals  under  other 
sources of appellate jurisdiction, and courts treated stays as
discretionary, not mandatory.2  Yet, according to the major-
ity, Congress sought to displace that common understand-
ing  when  it  enacted  §16—without  saying  anything  at  all
about stays pending appeal.

Even  setting  all  that  aside,  the  majority  opinion’s  reli-
ance on a “background” rule, ante, at 3, still fails.  The ma-
jority has not shown that its own rule (the mandatory-gen-
eral-stay  rule)  existed  as  a  background  matter  when 
Congress enacted §16 in 1988.  Indeed, the majority opinion 
does not identify a single case in which this Court imposed
a mandatory general stay of pre-trial and trial proceedings
pending  an  interlocutory  appeal.    Not  in  an  arbitration 
case.  Not in an analogous case about the proper adjudica-
tory forum for a dispute.  Not in any interlocutory appeal at
all. 

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2 See, e.g., Pearce v. E. F. Hutton Group, Inc., 828 F. 2d 826, 829 (CADC 
1987); Maxum Foundations, Inc. v. Salus Corp., 779 F. 2d 974, 977 (CA4 
1985);  Matterhorn,  Inc.  v.  NCR  Corp.,  727  F. 2d  629,  630  (CA7  1984); 
Lummus Co. v. Commonwealth Oil Refining Co., 273 F. 2d 613, 613–614 
(CA1 1959) (per curiam); Bernhardt v. Polygraphic Co. of Am., 235 F. 2d 
209, 211 (CA2 1956) (per curiam).