Cyan Argued

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund case, which addresses the preemptive scope of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA).   At issue in the case is whether SLUSA divests state courts of jurisdiction over class actions asserting claims arising under the Securities Act of 1933 (e.g., claims alleging a material misstatement in a registration statement).

The question before the Court is closely tied to Congress’s intent in enacting SLUSA.  In 1995, Congress passed the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) to protect corporate defendants from meritless securities class actions.   The PSLRA, however, only applied to federal cases.  To evade the PSLRA’s impact, plaintiffs began filing securities class actions in state court, usually based on state law causes of action.

Congress passed SLUSA to close this loophole.  Due to unclear drafting, however, there has been confusion in the lower courts over whether SLUSA also makes federal court the sole venue for class actions alleging Securities Act claims (which historically enjoyed concurrent jurisdiction in state or federal court).  In Cyan, the parties have put forward three competing interpretations of SLUSA.  The Petitioners (Defendants) contend that SLUSA divests state courts of jurisdiction over class actions asserting Securities Act claims, thereby insuring that those cases must be litigated in federal court.  The Solicitor General maintains that SLUSA permits the removal of class actions asserting Securities Act claims, thereby also allowing those cases to be heard in federal court.  Finally, the Respondents (Plaintiffs) contend that SLUSA did not address class actions asserting Securities Act claims at all, meaning that once in state court they are not removable to federal court.

The parties’ textual arguments require having SLUSA in one hand and a yellow highlighter in the other.  In the end, however, the text of the statute might not end up having much sway over the Court.  The justices expressed varying degrees of frustration in trying to parse through the specific statutory language to reach a result, with Justice Alito, in particular, repeatedly referring to the relevant provisions as “gibberish” and noting that “all the readings that everybody has given to all of these provisions are a stretch.”

Petitioners and the Solicitor General appeared to have more success on the issue of Congressional intent.  Petitioners’ counsel drew an analogy to building a house, suggesting that it was nonsensical to believe that Congress would have barred the front door against the bringing of securities class actions in state court asserting state law claims, while simultaneously leaving the back door open for plaintiffs to bring securities class actions in state court asserting federal law claims.  Moreover, if securities class actions asserting federal law claims go forward in state court, they are not subject to the PSLRA’s procedural protections, a result that Congress presumably wanted to avoid.

Several justices picked up on this theme, with Justice Ginsburg asking Respondents’ counsel “why would Congress want to do that” given that you end up with “the federal claim in state court, and none of those [PSLRA] restrictions apply”?  Similarly, Justice Alito expressed incredulity that Congress would want to bar “a claim in state court under a state cause of action that mirrors the ’33 Act” but then allow “the state court to be able to entertain the real thing, an actual ’33 Act [claim].”  Respondents’ counsel answered that if Congress was concerned about the “evasion of the PSLRA” in securities class actions alleging Securities Act claims, there were “10 different easier ways and more clear ways” that it could have removed the existence of concurrent jurisdiction for those cases (but it did not).  Justices Kagan and Sotomayor appeared sympathetic to that position, with Justice Kagan noting that “Congress did everything it wanted with respect to actions [under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934], which are the lion’s share of securities lawsuits.”

A decision is expected sometime early next year.