The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday seemed to agree on one aspectof a 1998 statute aimed at reforming securities litigation: It’sall gibberish.

An exasperated Justice Samuel Alito Jr. used the word“gibberish” three times during arguments in Cyan v.Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund. The California caseasks the high court to interpret the language of the SecuritiesLitigation Uniform Standard Act regarding state jurisdiction oversecurities class actions.

From the tenor of the argument though, the justices did not seemto have a clue. Other justices called the law “odd” or“obtuse.”

When Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal acknowledged thatCongress had used obtuse language that nonetheless gave federalcourts exclusive jurisdiction over class actions, Alito said,“That’s flattering. We have very smart lawyers here who have comeup with creative interpretations, but this is gibberish. It is justgibberish.”

Katyal represented Cyan, a telecom company that went public in2013 and was sued by shareholders.

Later in the argument, Alito was still frustrated. “Is there acertain point at which we say this means nothing, we can’t figureout what it means, and therefore it has no effect, it meansnothing?”

Class action defendants hope it means something— and from theirpoint of view, that something should preclude statejurisdiction.

Figuring out the law’s meaning is a hot issue, especially in California. State court rulingsthere allow concurrent state and federal jurisdiction over classactions, even though one aim of the Securities Litigation UniformStandards Act, or SLUSA, was to shut down state class actions withmore than 50 members. Companies defending against class actionsdon’t want to be in state courts, where cases can get bogged downand discovery costs soar.

A brief filed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. thatwas cited during argument Tuesday told the court that California’sinterpretation has resulted in “an explosion of state courtSecurities Act class actions,” with more than 50 securities issuersbeing sued in California courts alone.

Lawyers on both sides labored to persuade the court that theirreading of the statute was the most accurate, no matter how poorlyCongress had drafted the law.

“Maybe if you look at it one way, it’s gibberish, maybe some ofyou could have written it better, but it still has to be given somemeaning,” said Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general in theObama administration.

Representing the class action plaintiffs, Tom Goldstein ofWashington’s Goldstein & Russell gamely stated, “These wordsactually mean something. They may target a null set. They may notaccomplish anything.” But, he added, the obtuse language does noterase “a long-standing form of jurisdiction” that includes statecourts.

The court’s level of confusion may lead the justices to favorCyan, said Morrison & Foerster securities litigation partnerAnna Erickson White, who attended the hourlong argument.

“They were definitely grappling with the statute,” she said,“and that puts more emphasis on the intent of the statute,” whichshe said was to curb abusive class actions—in part by keeping thelitigation out of state courts.

Win or lose, it was an important day for Katyal. At the sametime he was arguing before the justices, a brief he filedin Trump v. Hawaii, a challenge to the Trump travelban, was released.

In addition, Katyal’s Cyan argument was his33rd before the court, surpassing the late Thurgood Marshall’s 32arguments. The 47-year-old Katyal, a Chicago native born toIndian parents, will have risen to the Supreme Court lectern moretimes than any other minority lawyer in history.