Supreme Court Enforces Employment Arbitration Agreement Waivers of Class Actions

The Court in EPIC SYSTEMS CORP. v. LEWIS predictably split 5-4 with conservative justices enforcing the class waivers and progressive justices dissenting. 

Russ Bleemer writes:

The long-running controversy involves arbitration provisions that kick in due to class waivers which prohibit employees from joining class processes—litigation or arbitration—in favor of mandatory, predispute, individualized arbitration to resolve disputes with their employers.

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[Justice] Gorsuch’s [majority] opinion rejects a 2012 National Labor Relations Board administrative [decision] that held that FAA Sec. 2 removed mandatory individual arbitration from FAA application for employee agreements.  The Court’s opinion notes that the reasoning interfered with a fundamental attribute of arbitration.

After rejecting the Sec. 2 argument, Gorsuch dismantled the employees’ other arguments.  He develops the Supreme Court precedent concerning two clashing federal statutes, finding that the National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, didn’t override 1925’s FAA to require class or collective actions.