Rules for Mass Individual Arbitrations

 Arbitration agreements precluding class actions or classwide arbitrations have become common since the Supreme Court's Concepcion case. This has led some enterprising plaintiffs' lawyers to file many virtually identical arbitration cases on behalf of a group of consumers or employees.

The American Arbitration Association now has rules to address such multiple case filings.

The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR) also has rules for such mass employment claims.

Did Arbitration Save Uber $80 Million?

Did Uber's payout to its drivers fall by $80 million due to an enforceable arbitration clause? That's the impression given by Johana Bhuiyan in the LA Times:

"Uber agreed to pay $20 million to settle lawsuits challenging the classification of drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees owed the benefits of traditional employment.

The payout is a far cry from the $100 million Uber had agreed to pay to settle the suit in 2016, after a San Francisco judge granted 385,000 drivers in California and Massachusetts class-action status. Eventually, a judge determined $100 million was not sufficient given the original class size.

But an appeals court ruling found Uber’s mandatory arbitration agreements — which obligate workers to settle their claims with the company one-on-one — were largely valid and enforceable.

That ruling, and Uber’s decision in May to maintain its policy of upholding its arbitration clause in cases unrelated to sexual misconduct, ultimately reduced the class to about 13,600 drivers, who had either opted not to agree to mandatory arbitration or drove for Uber before the company implemented such a policy."

Shannon Liss-Riordan, the plaintiffs' lawyer representing drivers, is running for U.S. Senate in a primary challenge to Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey.

Uber Class-Waiver Arbitration Agreement Unenforceable

The First Circuit recently held that an arbitration clause contained in the online contract of the ride sharing app, Uber Technologies, Inc., is unenforceable under Massachusetts law. Cullinane v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 16-2023 (1st Cir. June 25, 2018).

In this case, plaintiffs, Uber riders, filed a class action in Massachusetts state court, challenging certain fees Uber charged as violations of state consumer protection laws. Uber removed the case to federal court and moved to compel arbitration based on an arbitration clause in Uber’s Terms of Service. In order to use the Uber app, the customers had to register for an Uber account and to agree to the company’s Terms of Service & Privacy Policy. The Terms of Service included an arbitration clause which required customers to resolve any disputes with Uber through binding arbitration and also contained a class action waiver. The district court granted Uber’s motion to compel arbitration and dismissed the lawsuit. The plaintiffs appealled to the First Circuit.

As Jeanne Kohler of Carlton Fields writes, the First Circuit found that Uber had not reasonably communicated its Terms of Service, including the mandatory arbitration clause, to its customers because the link to the Terms was not sufficiently conspicuous. The Court noted that Uber did not use a common method of conspicuously informing online app users of its terms by requiring users to click a box stating that they agree to the terms before continuing to the next screen. Instead, Uber displayed, on an enrollment screen, a rectangular box with the language “Terms of Service,” which customers were not required to click in order to review the contract. The Court noted that Uber’s terms were not conspicuously disclosed to its users because the link was not designed in a way that most users associate with hyperlinks and thus did not have the appearance of a hyperlink. Further, the hyperlink box was not sufficiently distinct from the rest of the screen, which had other links in bold with similarly sized font that were “more noticeable.”

Creator of Arbitral Class Waiver, Alan Kaplinksy, Profiled

Philadelphia lawyer Alan Kaplinsky profiled by Philadelphia Inquirer:

Kaplinsky takes credit for the Arbitration Waiver, an agreement that forces bank customers (and, more recently, corporate employees) to accept arbitration to settle disputes, instead of suing or joining well-financed class-action lawsuits. Kaplinsky had feared that the bureau under Cordray would effectively ban mandatory arbitration. The Trump administration has favored the practice, protecting Kaplinsky’s legacy.

“We made a lot of money defending those suits. So you could say this goes against our self-interest,” Kaplinsky told me. “But I felt class actions were being abused.

Employment Arbitration Agreements Widespread

Employment arbitration agreements are widespread. New York Times op-ed says:

"Sixty million employees in the United States — at places from Buffalo Wild Wings to Facebook to Goldman Sachs — are now bound by mandatory-arbitration agreements, and of those, 25 million are bound by class-action bans."

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.

...

[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.

V.P. Pence Casts Deciding Senate Vote to Overrule CFPB Rule Against Arbitral Class Waivers

The Vice President cast the 51st Senate vote Tuesday to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule banning class-waivers in consumer financial services contracts' arbitration clauses.
The senate thus joined the house in using the Congressional Review Act which allows Congress to overturn an agency's recently finalized rule by a majority vote.

American Banker writes "Financial companies and the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce both opposed the rule, joining Republicans who claimed that the new regulation would expose financial companies to costly class-action lawsuits that rarely deliver significant compensation for plaintiffs. They pointed to a CFPB study that found that consumers who went through a closed-door arbitration process received more than $5,000 on average opposed to $32 in class-action lawsuits."

Slate quotes the NY Times as saying "The [CFPB] found that once blocked from suing, few people went to arbitration at all. And the results for those who did were dismal. During the two-year period studied, only 78 arbitration claims resulted in judgments in favor of consumers, who got $400,000 in total relief.”

NBC News points out "Two Republicans sided with Democrats to keep the rule — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana." That these GOP defections were not the usual defectors--like McCain, Murkowski, Collins, Snowe, or Paul--but southern conservatives, perhaps indicates the pressure to defect came primarily from trial lawyers--often a particularly strong factor in  otherwise-conservative southern states.

Supreme Court Hears Case on Class-Action Waivers in Arbitration Agreements

Today's oral arguments in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis are analyzed by Amy Howe. And Reuters.

HT to Mark Kantor

Business Groups Sue Today to Block CFPB Arbitration/Class-Action Rule

Business groups today sued the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) in federal court seeking an injunction against the CFPB’s Arbitration Rule, which would nullify arbitration agreement prohibitions of class actions.

Unless blocked, the Arbitration Rule mandates compliance for pre-dispute arbitration agreements entered into on or after March 19, 2018. 

Hat Tip to Mark Kantor and Chris Drahozal.

CFPB Director Defends Class Action Rule Over Arbitral Class Waivers

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray argues in the NY Times for his proposed rule banning arbitration agreement provisions requiring individual, rather than class, proceedings.

Cordray summarizes CFPB study of class payouts vs. arbitration "In five years of group lawsuits, we tallied an average of $220 million paid to 6.8 million consumers per year. Yet in the arbitration cases we studied, on average, 16 people per year recovered less than $100,000 total." Moreover, "It is true that the average payouts are higher in individual suits. But that is because very few people go through arbitration, and they generally do so only when thousands of dollars are at stake, whereas the typical group lawsuit seeks to recover small amounts for many people. Almost nobody spends time or money fighting a small fee on their own. As one judge noted, 'only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.'”

Trump v. CFPB on Arbitration

Trump administration trying to stop CFPB rule prohibiting arbitral class waivers. House Republicans too.

Unsurprisingly, NY Times takes CFPB's side.

The Centrist Case Against Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law

The Centrist Case Against Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law is my article just published in the Florida Law Review. 

In The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform, published in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, I explained how issues surrounding consumer and other adhesive arbitration agreements became divisive along predictable political lines (progressives vs. conservatives) and proposed an intermediate (or centrist) position to resolve those issues. However, The Politics of Arbitration Law did not argue the case for my proposals. It left those arguments for this Article, which makes the case against current (conservative) arbitration law, and a third article, which will make the case against progressive proposals to reform arbitration law. In other words, this Article stands out from the many other articles critiquing current arbitration law because this Article’s critique comes from a centrist, rather than progressive, perspective. For that reason, this Article’s critique may be more likely than progressive critiques to gain traction with lawmakers. 

I welcome comments directed to ware@ku.edu

Supreme Court to Decide Enforceability of Class Waivers in Labor Arbitration

Federal appeals courts have split on whether the NLRB rightly holds arbitration agreements illegal under federal labor law if they contain class action waivers.

The Supreme Court today agreed to resolve the issue.

The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform

My latest article, The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform, is in the Harvard Journal on Legislation. Stephen J. Ware, The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform, 53 Harvard J. on Legislation 711 (2016).

The abstract:

Arbitration law in the United States is far more controversial when applied
to individuals than to businesses. While enforcement of arbitration agreements
between businesses sometimes raises legal issues that divide courts, those issues
tend to interest only scholars, lawyers, and other specialists in the field of arbitration.
In contrast, enforcement of arbitration agreements between a business
and an individual (such as a consumer or employee) raises legal issues that
interest many members of Congress and various interest groups, all of whom
have taken positions on significant proposals for law reform. The Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau has extensively researched and reported on consumer
arbitration agreements and is expected to issue a rule regulating, or even
prohibiting, such agreements.

This Article both explains how issues surrounding consumer and other adhesive
arbitration agreements became divisive along predictable political lines
and introduces a framework to understand and compare various positions on
them. This new framework arrays on a continuum five positions on the level of
consent the law should require before enforcing an arbitration agreement
against an individual. Progressives generally would require higher levels of
consent than arbitration law currently requires, while conservatives generally
defend current arbitration law’s low standards of consent.

This Article proposes a centrist position. It joins progressives in rejecting
overbroad enforcement of adhesive arbitration agreements due to conservative supported
anomalies in arbitration law’s treatment of contract-law defenses, legally-
erroneous decisions, and class actions. Once these anomalies are fixed,
though, this Article joins conservatives in defending general enforcement of adhesive
arbitration agreements under contract law’s standards of consent because
adhesive arbitration agreements should—contrary to progressive opinions—be
as generally enforceable as other adhesion contracts. This Article briefly concludes
by proposing language for a rule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
could adopt to enact the reforms advocated in this Article.

Circuit Split on Employment Class Waivers

The Seventh Circuit refused to enforce an arbitration agreement’s prohibition on class actions, which would have required the employee to individually arbitrate his wage and hour claim. The Seventh Circuit said the agreement’s prohibition on class actions violated the employee’s right to engage in concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act.

In so ruling the Seventh Circuit joined the National Labor Relations Board but split from the Fifth Circuit.

Law Professors' Support of CFPB Proposal

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule to ban class-action waivers in arbitration agreements.

As the CFPB summarizes:

First, the proposed rule would prohibit covered providers of certain consumer financial products and services from using an agreement with a consumer that provides for arbitration of any future dispute between the parties to bar the consumer from filing or participating in a class action with respect to the covered consumer financial product or service. Second, the proposal would require a covered provider that is involved in an arbitration pursuant to a pre-dispute arbitration agreement to submit specified arbitral records to the Bureau.

Many law professors signed a letter supporting this rule.
Further support from Brooklyn Law Professor David Reiss

Ban on Class Waivers in Consumer Finance Arbitration Coming Soon?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a rule to ban class waivers in arbitration agreements.

As the CFPB summarizes:

First, the proposed rule would prohibit covered providers of certain consumer financial products and services from using an agreement with a consumer that provides for arbitration of any future dispute between the parties to bar the consumer from filing or participating in a class action with respect to the covered consumer financial product or service. Second, the proposal would require a covered provider that is involved in an arbitration pursuant to a pre-dispute arbitration agreement to submit specified arbitral records to the Bureau.

Hat tip to Opal Nicole Smith

Employment Arbitration Agreements Eliminating Class Actions

A view from Jackson Lewis on whether employers should use arbitration agreements that eliminate class actions.

Class Waivers in Consumer Arbitration Agreements

A "class waiver" is a contract clause requiring disputes to be resolved individually rather than in a class action. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to prohibit class waivers in consumer financial services arbitration agreements. Adding fuel to this fire is yet another NY Times article portraying aggressive businesses preying on vulnerable consumers and then depicting the class action as the only practical redress for consumers -- squelched by the dreaded arbitration clause.

The most recent article: "By inserting arbitration clauses into the fine print of consumer contracts, they have found a way to block access to the courts and ban class-action lawsuits, the only realistic way to bring a case against a deep-pocketed corporation."

Supreme Court Rules for DirectTV in Class Arbitration Case

The full text of DIRECTV, INC. v. IMBURGIA ET AL addresses whether a California choice of law clause chose California law on arbitral class waivers over federal law on them.

Commentary on the case by Georgetown Law professor Greg Klass says "all the opinion says is that when a state court is messing around with preempted state law, it should be really, really clear that it understands that in the end federal law always wins"