In a published decision issued yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that collective claims for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty under ERISA were not subject to the arbitration agreements in plaintiff employees’ employment contracts. Instead, since those claims were brought for the benefit of the ERISA plans in which the
collective action
Supreme Court Upholds Employee Class-/Collective-Action Waivers under Federal Arbitration Act
We’ve been monitoring the appellate battles over the enforceability of class- and collective-action waivers in the employment context since September 2016, when we pondered whether circuit splits would land the issue in the Supreme Court. Since then, our colleagues in the Labor and Employment practice at McGuireWoods have supplied interim reports on the Supreme…
“Opt Out” Provisions May Provide Path Forward for Class-Action Waivers in Employment Contracts
Los Angeles labor and employment litigators Michael Mandel and Amy Beverlin bring us perspective on three class-action waiver cases currently awaiting decision by the Supreme Court, as well as a potential path forward for class-action waivers in employment contracts.
Everyone is talking about the future of class-action waivers in employment arbitration agreements after the Supreme…
Do Good Things Come in Threes? Supreme Court Grants Cert in Three Collective Action Waiver Cases
As recently reported by our colleague Brennan Bolt in one of our sister blogs, Labor Relations Today, the Supreme Court has answered a question I posed a few months ago by granting cert in not one, not two, but three cases involving the enforceability of class/collective action waivers in employment agreements. These…
Will Collective Arbitration Waivers Land in the Supreme Court Again?
The long-running battle over collective action waivers in the arbitration clauses of employment agreements continues to rage in the Courts of Appeals. Two recent decisions (and the cert petitions filed in their wake) may well lead the Supreme Court to consider once again the thorny relationship between the class/collective action mechanism and federal arbitration law.…
Mootness Controversy Still Live – Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk
Rule 68 offers of judgment have been controversial in class action practice for quite some time. Proponents of the tactic believe that it offers a valuable means of limiting frivolous lawsuits: where there are really only a few affected claimants, an offer of judgment can force them to face up to the costs of meritless…