HR - Arbitration Issues

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 or after October 7, 2016. Schedule I drugs are drugs that have a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S., and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.

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 due to the inclusion of a waiver of claims brought under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”). The decision invalidated nearly 250,000 arbitration agreements between Uber and independent drivers, allowing the case against Uber to proceed as a class action in civil court.

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 which employees waived their rights to pursue class or collective action to redress employment-related disputes in any forum.

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 Corp., No. 15-cv-82-bbc (7th Cir. May 26, 2016). This holding is contrary to that of the Second, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.

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 disputes in any forum, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, has held.

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 arbitration clauses in the employment litigation realm, and have both concluded that such clauses are not enforceable. These cases serve as a reminder that an employer must be vigilant should it wish to make such a clause part of its employment policies.

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 between DirectTV and the consumer will be resolved by binding, individual arbitration and that the consumer waives the right to pursue any claim on a class basis. However, the agreement further provided that if the class waiver is unenforceable under “the law of your state” (the state where the consumer resides), then the entire arbitration provision will be deemed unenforceable.

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 almost uniformly have favored arbitration, and many employers have adopted and successfully utilized arbitration agreements containing class action waivers.

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” action under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), even where the right to do so is expressly waived by the employee and employer in an arbitration agreement governed by the FAA.

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 arbitration clause is not listed in a survival clause appears to be one of first impression among the circuit courts.”

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, notwithstanding the right employees have to engage in concerted activities under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). On a separate but related issue, the Fifth Circuit found, however, that D.R. Horton violated the NLRA because its arbitration agreement could be reasonably interpreted to prohibit employees from filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”).

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 containing a class action waiver.