class arbitration

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In January of this year, the Eighth Circuit was the first federal appellate court to refuse to adopt the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling on class action waivers in employment contracts.  (The previous year, in D.R. Horton, the NLRB declared it a violation of federal labor law for employers to require employees to waive their…

Put this post in the “I called it” category.

On June 12, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared in Feeney that class arbitration waivers are invalid under Massachusetts law if plaintiffs cannot effectively pursue their claims in individual arbitration.  On June 20, the U.S. Supreme Court decided American Express, holding that arbitration agreements must…

In American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, a divided Supreme Court today reversed the Second Circuit and held that plaintiffs may not invalidate an arbitration agreement containing a class action waiver merely because proving their claims on an individual basis would cost many times more than their potential recovery.  In doing so, Justice…

As we were waiting for SCOTUS’s decision in AmEx, we got a decision on vindicating statutory rights from a different high court: the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.  In an opinion that could be a blueprint for other plaintiff-friendly states, the supremes in Massachusetts held that courts may invalidate arbitration agreements that preclude class …

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Sutter today, unanimously holding that as long as the arbitrator bases a decision to allow or disallow class arbitration on the text of the parties’ agreement, her “construction holds, however good, bad, or ugly.”  Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, 569 U.S. ___ (June 10, 2013).  The …

More than one year ago, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit determined that California case law, which precluded arbitration of claims asking for public injunctive relief, was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act.  Upon rehearing the case en banc, the Court backpedaled.  Kilgore v. KeyBank Nat’l Assoc., __ F.3d __,…

The Fourth Circuit issued a bold new arbitration decision last week, sending a putative class of shuttle drivers to arbitration while expanding its application of SCOTUS’ Concepcion decision beyond cases involving federal preemption of state arbitration law.  Muriithi v. Shuttle Express, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 1287859 (4th Cir. 2013).

Muriithi was a…

While the oral argument before the United States Supreme Court in Sutter today was ostensibly about whether to affirm an arbitrator’s decision that the parties’ contract authorized class arbitration, the decision really turns on how the Court will review all arbitration decisions.  (Transcript here.)  Multiple Justices expressed an unwillingness to create a special …

The Supreme Court heard arguments in AmEx III today, the case that presents the question whether an arbitration agreement precluding class actions can be invalid if it makes it impossible for plaintiffs to vindicate federal statutory rights (in this case, because individual antitrust cases would be prohibitively expensive).  The full transcript is available here.…