HR - Arbitration Issues

Overview: By Decision dated July 19, 2017 (the “Decision”), the Appellate Division, First Department (the “First Department”) (which has jurisdiction over Manhattan and Bronx) held that arbitration agreements obligating employees to waive their rights to bring collective disputes, such as class acti

On May 15, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court reiterated the principle that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) requires states to treat arbitration agreements just as they treat other types of contracts. In Kindred Nursing Centers L.P. v. Clark, the Court reversed in part a decision of the Kentucky Supreme

Three cases making their way through the courts demonstrate that the question of arbitration clauses in long-term care (LTC) facility admission agreements is an active and developing area of the law.

In Ziober v. BLB Resources, Inc., 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 18516 (9th Cir., Oct. 14, 2016), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit joined three other circuit courts in holding that the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) does not prohibit the compelled ar

The Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) announced September 7, 2016 that it intends to temporarily schedule the synthetic opioid known as U-47700 on Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act because it poses an imminent hazard to the public safety. A final scheduling order will be made

On September 7, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Mohamed v. Uber Technologies, Inc. largely overturned the District Court’s ruling which had held Uber’s arbitration agreements to be unenforceable. Last year, the District Court had held that the arbitration agreements were unconscionable d

Within hours of Gretchen Carlson suing then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment, Ailes’ attorney responded that Carlson was “desperately attempting to litigate [her termination] in the press.” It didn’t take much longer for Ailes to follow this comment with a formal motion to thwart Carls

On the heels of the 7th Circuit’s May 27 Lewis v. Epic Systems decision, reported here, yesterday the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the NLRB erred in determining that Cellular Sales of Missouri, LLC violated the NLRA by maintaining and enforcing a mandatory arbitration agreement under wh

Setting the stage for U.S. Supreme Court review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, has held that arbitration agreements that prohibit employees from bringing or participating in class or collective actions violate the National Labor Relations Act. Lewis v. Epic Systems C

The National Labor Relations Board erred in determining that a company violated the National Labor Relations Act by maintaining and enforcing a mandatory arbitration agreement which prohibited employees from bringing or participating in class or collective actions to redress employment-related dispu

An employee handbook is a necessary and familiar workplace fixture. A recent trend among employers is the inclusion of a mandatory arbitration clause, to avoid a jury trial in the event of employment-related litigation. Both state and federal courts have recently grappled with the validity of arbitr

Despite recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions strongly upholding the enforceability of class action waivers in arbitration agreements, opposition to class action waivers on both the political and legal fronts persists, especially in California.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in DirectTV v. Imburgia, reversing a California Court of Appeal’s refusal to enforce a consumer arbitration agreement containing a class action waiver. The case involves a service agreement between DirectTV and its consumers, stating that any dispute b

The latest of a line of recent cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed the enforceability of class action waivers in arbitration agreements was before the Court on October 6, 2015, when the Supreme Court heard oral argument in DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, et al., No. 14-462. These decisions

The U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC leaves intact (for now) the California Supreme Court’s decision holding that neither Supreme Court precedent nor the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempt an employee’s right to bring a “representative”

Is an arbitration clause enforceable if it is in an expired contract and the parties omitted it from the contract’s survival clause? Yes, said the Sixth Circuit in Huffman v. The Hilltop Companies, noting “whether the strong presumption in favor of arbitration applies postexpiration when an arbitrat

Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925 to place arbitration agreements on the same footing as other contracts.1 Under the FAA, an arbitration provision “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any cont

On December 3, 2013, in D.R. Horton, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that class action waiver provisions contained in mandatory, pre-dispute arbitration agreements governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) are enforceable, notwithstan

Executive Summary: In a long awaited decision, D.R. Horton v. National Labor Relations Board, (Case. No. 12-60031, Dec. 3, 2013), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the January 2012 ruling of the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") that invalidated an employee's arbitration agreement con