Badgerow v. Walter

**The Supreme Court held that the look-through approach from Vaden v. Discover Bank does not extend to §9 and §10 FAA petitions — a federal court must find independent jurisdictional grounds on the face of the petition itself.** The Court called Vaden a 'highly unusual' case and a 'jurisdictional outlier.'

Vaden's look-through doctrine was rooted in specific statutory language in §4: the 'save for such agreement' clause, which directs the court to ask what jurisdiction would exist if the arbitration agreement were set aside. That language authorizes — and requires — looking through to the underlying dispute. §§9 and 10 contain no equivalent language. They simply authorize petitions to 'any United States district court' without the 'save for' qualifier.

The deeper problem with extending Vaden: the look-through approach requires a federal court to examine an issue that is not actually before it. The underlying substantive dispute belongs to the arbitration forum, not the federal court. The federal court is only deciding the FAA motion. Vaden tolerated that anomaly because of the specific §4 text. Without the same textual hook in §§9 and 10, the court has no warrant to look past the motion in front of it.

Bryan's read: The 'save for' language in §4 creates a narrow, text-specific exception to the normal case-or-controversy requirement. Vaden is the outlier. Badgerow is the correction — it cabins Vaden to its statutory home and prevents the look-through from metastasizing into a general FAA jurisdictional doctrine. [VERIFY reasoning against Kagan's opinion; 'save for' clause explainer still needed]