Arbitration Agreements

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By: Noah A. Finkel and Andrew L. Scroggins

Seyfarth Synopsis:  Pending bi-partisan legislation aimed at preventing employers from enforcing arbitration agreements of sexual harassment claims might make employers unable to enforce arbitration agreements, and class waivers included in them, as to any employment claim.

High profile stories of sexual harassment (and much worse) in the workplace and beyond have…
Continue Reading SLOW DOWN Congress: You Are About to Render the FAA Inapplicable to Employment Disputes (and Class Waivers), and You Probably Don’t Realize It

Authored by Andrew L. Scroggins, Noah A. Finkel, and David S. Baffa

Seyfarth Synopsis:  The NLRB has withdrawn the significant concession it offered at oral argument on the nature of the NLRA rights it seeks to assert in the face of employers’ mandatory arbitration programs.

As noted in our earlier blog post, the Supreme Court heard oral…
Continue Reading NLRB About-Face Highlights Lack of Reasoning on the Class Action “Right” It Seeks to Assert

Co-authored by Noah A. Finkel, David S. Baffa, and Andrew L. Scroggins

Seyfarth Synopsis: Following oral argument, employers should be cautiously optimistic that the Supreme Court will allow mandatory arbitration programs containing waivers of the ability to bring collective and class actions.

In yesterday’s oral argument, in one of the most significant employment law cases we have seen…
Continue Reading Class Waivers at the Divided Supreme Court: Employers Cautiously Optimistic

Co-authored by Noah Finkel and David Baffa

Seyfarth Synopsis: In the first argument of the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in three cases presenting the issue of whether an employer may require employees to enter into arbitration agreements containing a waiver of the ability to join a class or collective action. …
Continue Reading Will the Supreme Court Finally Remove Doubt That an Employer Can Mandate That Employees Enter Into Arbitration Agreements with Class Waivers?

Authored by Holger G. Besch 

Perhaps signaling the importance of the issue for American businesses and jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court‎ chose the first day of its term beginning in October as the date to set oral arguments in three petitions for certiorari asking whether employees can be required to waive their rights via arbitration agreements to file class and…
Continue Reading SCOTUS Puts the Class Action Waiver Issue at the Top of Its Agenda

Co-authored by Robert S. Whitman and Howard M. Wexler

Seyfarth Synopsis: A New York intermediate appellate court with jurisdiction over Manhattan weighed in on the enforceability of arbitration agreements with class and collective action waivers.  Its decision, issued on July 18, 2017, holds that waivers are unenforceable as they interfere with employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act …
Continue Reading New York Appellate Court Strikes Down Class Action Waivers

Co-authored by Noah Finkel and Andrew Scroggins

Employers have faced questions about the enforceability of arbitration agreements with class and collective action waivers since the NLRB’s highly controversial D.R. Horton decision in 2012, which held that the waivers violate employees’ right to engage in protected concerted activity. The Fifth Circuit refused to enforce the decision, and other courts followed…
Continue Reading Mandatory Arbitration, Class Waivers, and the Future of Wage-Hour Litigation: 6th Circuit Shows One Reason Why High Court Rejection of D.R. Horton Theory Would Not Kill Collective Actions

Authored by Kiran A. Seldon

Seyfarth Synopsis: Three decisions issued earlier this month reveal an increasing tension between the Ninth Circuit and California appellate courts on whether representative PAGA actions can be arbitrated. As a result, employers wishing to compel arbitration of representative PAGA claims are likely to be better off in federal court than in state court.

In 2014,…
Continue Reading Arbitrating PAGA Representative Actions: Federal and State Courts Begin to Part Ways

Co-authored by David D. Kadue and Rocio Herrera

Seyfarth Synopsis: A California appellate court has held that unless a collective bargaining agreement includes an explicitly stated, clear, and unmistakable intent to waive the right to a judicial forum for statutory claims, arbitration of those claims will not be compelled. The CBA in the case, Vasserman v. Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial…
Continue Reading CBAs Must Specifically State Intent to Arbitrate Statutory Rights

Authored by Robert J. Carty, Jr.

As our regular readers already know, the Supreme Court is poised to decide one of the most contentious issues facing the wage-and-hour world—namely, whether class- and collective-action waivers render workplace arbitration agreements unenforceable.

Well, it seemed poised until today.  Now we need to sit tight until at least October.

First, a quick recap.  A…
Continue Reading Supreme Court to Hear Class-Action Waiver Arguments in its October 2017 Term