Employment Law This Week®: Sexual Orientation Bias, Religious Discrimination, At-Will Employment Provision, Class Arbitration
On June 23, 2023, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, the Supreme Court resolved a deeply divided circuit court split and ruled that a district court must stay its proceedings while an interlocutory appeal on the question of...more
In the decade since the Supreme Court decided AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, 339 (2011) and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurants, 570 U.S. 228, 233 (2013), arbitrability has become a threshold...more
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
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
Takeaway: A lot of ink has been spilled on the issue of class arbitration, but this much is clear: If a federal court decides the class arbitration issue, then the proponent of class arbitration should lose, unless the...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
In 2004, the Supreme Court of Texas first addressed the issue of whether an arbitrator or a judge decides if an arbitration agreement permits (or prohibits) class arbitration....more
US Supreme Court Issues Trio of Arbitration Decisions - During its 2018-19 term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued decisions in three cases involving arbitration matters. These decisions, discussed further in our September 26,...more
For most small to medium-sized businesses, the threat of a class action is not usually front-of-mind. However, as a business grows, the threat can increase depending on the number of employees and the nature of the work being...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 term was a busy one for arbitration, with the Court issuing rulings in three cases addressing questions of the reach and interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The Court has already...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
Add the Fifth Circuit to the growing list of Federal Circuit Courts that have decided that “class arbitrability” is a gateway question for a court, rather than an arbitrator, to decide in the first instance, absent the...more
Recently, the Supreme Court imposed yet another roadblock to class arbitration in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela. Relying on Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int’l Corp., the Court ruled that ambiguous language in an...more
The U.S. Supreme Court term that ended in June 2019 included decisions on many topics important to workplace law, including class actions, arbitration, and administrative exhaustion and Title VII claims. ...more
The U.S. Supreme Court issued two 5-4 decisions in as many months regarding class procedures. Lamp Plus, Inc. v. Varela, 587 U. S. ____ (2019) was favorable to corporate defendants by limiting the availability of class...more
This edition of Employment Flash looks at developments in labor and employment law, including regarding a DOJ appeal of the EEOC's heightened pay reporting requirements, the NLRB's decision narrowing the circumstances under...more
On April 24, 2019, in a 5-4 decision split along ideological lines, the Supreme Court held in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela that class arbitration is not available where arbitration agreements are unclear about whether the...more
We have good news from the U.S. Supreme Court for creditors who use arbitration agreements. On April 24, 2019, in Lamps Plus v. Varela, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that courts may no longer infer from an...more
Last year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that class action waivers in employment arbitration agreements are enforceable. But, the ruling did not address an agreement that is silent or ambiguous regarding the intent to...more
On April 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 5–4 opinion in Lamps Plus, Inc., et al. v. Varela holding that class arbitration is only allowed when the parties’ agreement explicitly allows for it. In other words, when...more
In a case with important implications for employers, Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, the United States Supreme Court held that class-wide arbitration may not be compelled pursuant to an arbitration agreement that is ambiguous as...more
On April 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an ambiguous arbitration agreement does not provide a sufficient basis to conclude that parties agreed to class arbitration....more
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varella, No. 17-988, 2019 WL 1780275 (U.S. Apr. 24, 2019), a lot of ink has been spilled on the issue of class arbitration. The Lamps Plus majority,...more
In 2016, a hacker tricked an employee of petitioner Lamps Plus Inc. into disclosing tax information of about 1,300 company employees. ...more