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Fifth Circuit Holds District Courts in FLSA Actions May Not Send Notice to Employees with Valid Arbitration Agreements that Prohibit Participation in a Collective Action

Filed Under: General (Class Actions)

In one of the most significant Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) appellate decisions in recent years, on February 21, 2019, a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously held that β€œdistrict courts may not send notice to an employee with a valid arbitration agreement unless the record shows that nothing in the agreement would prohibit that employee from participating in the collective action.” The Fifth Circuit’s decision in In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., No. 18-20825 (5th Cir.) represents the first U.S. Court of Appeals to address this important issue related to the issuance of notice in FLSA collective actions where a portion of the proposed collective is subject to an arbitration agreement.