Arbitration

Federal Courts Must Grant Requests for Stays Pending Arbitration

Last week, in Smith v. Spizzirri, the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that a federal court must grant a party’s request for a stay while arbitration is pending. In Spizzirri, a group of delivery drivers sued their current and former employers in Arizona state court. The plaintiffs alleged they were misclassified as independent contracts and were denied benefits. The defendants removed the case to federal court. The defendants also moved to compel arbitration and dismiss the suit.

Plaintiffs agreed their claims are arbitrable but argued the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) only requires the court to stay, […]

By |2024-05-21T09:20:05-04:00May 21st, 2024|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: , , , , , , , , , |
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The Supreme Court Contemplates Ending the Automatic Stay During an Arbitration Appeal

In December, this blog noted that the Supreme Court, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski,  would consider whether federal law requires courts to automatically stay litigation during an arbitration appeal.  The Supreme Court heard oral argument on the issue yesterday and several justices expressed a willingness to potentially end the automatic stay during an arbitration appeal.  Such a decision would likely increase the cost of defending class-action lawsuits in most jurisdictions.

Arbitration generally provides a less costly and more efficient procedure for resolving disputes than litigation.  Arbitration clauses, a staple of business contracts, compel would-be litigants to resolve […]

By |2023-03-24T16:36:53-04:00March 24th, 2023|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: , , |
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Supreme Court Considers Whether to Automatically Stay Litigation During an Arbitration Appeal

In 2021, two plaintiffs filed separate class-action lawsuits against Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S.  Coinbase moved to compel arbitration in each case because both plaintiffs signed Coinbase’s User Agreement directing any dispute to arbitration.  The United States District Court for Northern California denied arbitration in both cases.  Coinbase appealed the denial of arbitration and moved to stay the underlying class actions.  The District Court again denied Coinbase’s motion and allowed both the arbitration appeal and the class action litigation to proceed concurrently.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court in both cases.  […]

By |2023-01-14T08:35:50-05:00December 21st, 2022|Practice Areas: Class Action|Topics: , , |
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Supreme Court Rules Prejudice Inquiry has no Place in Waiver of Arbitration Contract Provision

On May 23, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled, in a decision that will potentially have wide ranging impact on the arbitration of potential class action disputes, that a party’s right to try to send a case to arbitration after first litigating does not depend on whether the delay prejudiced the other party.  As a result, workers seeking to keep their cases out of arbitration no longer need to show prejudice when fighting a delayed arbitration bid.  They only need to show that the employer waived its right to arbitration by engaging in conduct inconsistent with the […]

By |2022-05-27T10:52:36-04:00May 27th, 2022|Practice Areas: Labor & Employment|Topics: , , , , |
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Supreme Court to Consider Waiver of Right to Arbitration in Employee Wage and Hour Case

On November 15, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear a case by a former Taco Bell employee, Robyn Morgan, regarding her former employer’s right to compel arbitration in her wage and hour case.  Morgan’s claims stem from her allegation that her former employer and Taco Bell franchisee, Sundance, Inc., failed to pay her time-and-a-half for overtime.  Specifically, Morgan alleges that Sundance recorded her worktime across multiple weeks to keep her time under forty hours per week.  Sundance answered Morgan’s Complaint and litigated the case for eight months.  It then moved to compel arbitration […]

By |2021-11-30T15:57:22-05:00November 18th, 2021|Practice Areas: Class Action, Labor & Employment|Topics: , , , |
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NLRB Finds Employers Can Modify Arbitration Agreements After Suit to Prohibit Participation in Collective Actions

On August 14, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that employers can revise mandatory arbitration agreements to prohibit employees from joining class and collective actions even after a suit has been filed. The NLRB further held that employers may condition continued employment on the execution of the amended agreement and threaten to terminate those who refuse. Neither action was found to violate Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, which prohibits employers from interfering with employees’ union-related activities under Section 7 of the Act.

In the case at bar, a group of employees filed a […]

By |2019-11-26T13:19:50-05:00August 21st, 2019|Practice Areas: Labor & Employment|Topics: |
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The Supreme Court Refuses to Enforce Classwide Arbitration

On April 24, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court held that an ambiguous arbitration clause is not sufficient under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to force class arbitration on a non-consenting party. Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, No. 17-1988. The Court concluded that lower courts may not draw an inference from an ambiguous agreement that the parties consented to class arbitration and that neither silence nor ambiguity can establish a party’s consent to class arbitration under the FAA. This is because, according to the Court, parties’ consent to arbitrate is the foundational principle of arbitration agreements.

Lamps Plus […]

By |2019-11-26T13:17:43-05:00May 6th, 2019|Practice Areas: Labor & Employment|Topics: , |
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