Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams

Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 6, 2000 Decided March 21, 2001
Full case name	Circuit City Stores, Incorporated, Petitioner v. Saint Clair Adams
Citations	532 U.S. 105 (more) 121 S. Ct. 1302; 149 L. Ed. 2d 234
Case history
Prior	stay of state proceedings ordered and arbitration compelled, unreported (N.D. Cal., 1998); reversed and remanded, 194 F.3d 1070 (9th Cir. 1999); cert. granted, 529 U.S. 1129 (2000).
Subsequent	reversed and remanded on different ground, 279 F.3d 889 (9th Cir. 2002)
Holding
The Federal Arbitration Act's exception of "contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or other classes of workers engaged in interstate commerce" does not apply to general employment contracts.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas
Dissent	Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer; Souter (Parts II and III)
Dissent	Souter, joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer
Laws applied
Federal Arbitration Act

Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case that concerned whether the "section one exemption" of the Federal Arbitration Act applied to an employment contract of an employee at Circuit City Stores. The Court held that the exemption was limited to the specific listing of professions contained in the text. This decision meant that general employment contracts, like the one Adams sued under, would have to be arbitrated in accordance with the federal statute.