Employment Law This Week®: Sexual Orientation Bias, Religious Discrimination, At-Will Employment Provision, Class Arbitration
In its restraint, SCOTUS has shown us the mischief that arbitrators may do if parties are lax in setting boundaries in their agreement to arbitrate. By declining to grant certiorari regarding the Second Circuit’s most recent...more
Takeaway: The concept of class arbitration has endured stiff headwinds. In Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varella, 139 S. Ct. 1407 (2019), the Supreme Court ruled that a party cannot be required to participate in a class arbitration...more
Takeaway: We have written a number of articles about class arbitration. See, e.g., Fifth Circuit: arbitrator’s decision to conduct class arbitration cannot be vacated (May 11, 2020). A key issue is whether the parties’...more
The United States Supreme Court established that questions of arbitrability are presumptively for a court unless the parties clearly and unmistakability manifest their intention (i.e, agreement) that such issues should be...more
Under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), “a party may not be compelled . . . to submit to class arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that the party agreed to do so.” Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v....more
“Class arbitration” signifies the utilization of the Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 protocol in an arbitration proceeding. A fundamental question among many concerning the legal viability of “class arbitration” is whether an arbitrator can...more
Takeaway: The concept of class arbitration has recently faced stiff headwinds. In Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varella, 139 S. Ct. 1407 (2019), the Supreme Court ruled that a party cannot be required to participate in a class...more
In reversing a New York federal court, the Second Circuit found the arbitration was within the arbitrator’s authority in binding absent class members to class proceedings because, by signing the operative arbitration...more
As this blog has previously discussed, the availability of class arbitration has been significantly restricted after a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions. However, we have also noted that express preclusion of class...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has pointed out consistently in recent years that the relatively new construct of “class arbitration” is very different from your uncle’s classic bilateral arbitration. (“Class arbitration” signifies...more
As the U.S. Supreme Court observed memorably in First Options of Chicago, Inc. v. Kaplan, arbitration disputes often raise “three types of disagreement” relevant to resolution of the dispute: (1) a disagreement as to the...more
Less than a week apart, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits issued similar rulings regarding class arbitration. Both courts examined the question of whether the incorporation of American Arbitration...more
We recently began a series of articles in which we ask whether “class arbitration” — meaning the utilization of a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 class action protocol in an arbitration proceeding — is ultimately viable,...more
A decision allowing class-wide arbitration can transform a routine dispute into a “bet the company” problem. Who makes that decision: an arbitrator or a court? The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals answered that question...more
Action Item: In a precedential opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit outlined what is required for parties to allow arbitrators—rather than courts—to decide whether a matter could be arbitrated as a class....more
As we stated previously, the potential impact of whether entitlement to class arbitration is a “gateway issue” will likely diminish with each passing year. (See our March 12, 2015, blog article on the denial of certiorari in...more