Nearly two years after Waffle House Inc. employee Carrie Harris filed an unfair labor practices charge, the Georgia-based breakfast chain was unable to butter up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Harris’ complaint alleged that Waffle House’s arbitration agreement that employees were required to execute as a condition of their employment violated the National Labor … Continue Reading
The U.S. Supreme Court has once again reinforced its interpretation of the Federal Arbitration Act, ruling on December 14 that a California state law prohibiting class action waivers in arbitration agreements may not trump the Court’s earlier decision in favor of enforcement of arbitration agreements. In the four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in … Continue Reading
With the World Series getting underway, Yogi Berra’s famous quote seemed like the appropriate headline for our latest update in the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) D.R. Horton/Murphy Oil saga. As we have discussed in previous blog entries, in 2012, the NLRB issued its decision in D.R. Horton, Inc., in which it held that an … Continue Reading
Second Circuit Court of Appeals Adopts New Test for Determining Whether Unpaid Interns Should Be Classified and Paid as Employees Unpaid internship programs have come under heightened scrutiny in recent years by the Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and other regulatory agencies, as well been the subject of a number of high-profile lawsuits. … Continue Reading
Fifth Circuit Rejects NLRB’s En Banc Hearing Request, Setting Up Likely Denial of Enforcement in Murphy Oil, USA In its 2012 decision in D.R. Horton, Inc., the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held that employers that require employees to agree to arbitrate employment-related claims, and to do so only on an individual basis, waiving the … Continue Reading
Readers of our blog are well aware of the National Labor Relations Board’s position that agreements between employers and employees to resolve employment-related claims on an individual basis through binding arbitration, and which thereby waive or prohibit the bringing of such claims on a class or collective action basis, violate the guarantee in Section 7 … Continue Reading
The explosion in the development of smartphone applications has allowed for all sorts of new businesses to pop up—personal shoppers (Instacart), restaurant delivery (GrubHub) and private chauffeurs (Uber and Lyft). We, as consumers, now have instant access to goods and services we didn’t even know we needed. This new boom has even earned its own … Continue Reading
In what could be the beginning of a new era in employment collective and class actions, the Southern District of New York has approved the use of social media as a mechanism to notify potential class members in a wage and hour dispute Mark v. Gawker Media LLC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155424 (Nov. 3, … Continue Reading
On January 20, the United States Supreme Court denied a motion for certiorari filed by CLS Transportation which was appealing the California Supreme Court’s decision in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation, about which we blogged in June. While Iskanian generally vindicated employers’ right to enforce class action bans in arbitration agreements, the California Supreme Court distinguished … Continue Reading
On November 14, 2014, a New York federal judge awarded over $10 million in back pay wages to about 2,000 current and former exotic dancers in a class action lawsuit brought against Rick’s Cabaret for unpaid wages from 2005-2012. This recent order awarding damages to the dancers is a furtherance of the Court’s September 2013 holding … Continue Reading
United States District Judge Lucy Koh, sitting in San Jose, refused to approve a $324.5 million settlement in a case pitting a class of engineers against high tech giants Adobe Systems, Apple, Google and Intel. The engineers’ claims in the case captioned, In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, stem from a 2010 U.S. Department of … Continue Reading
As we’ve reported here and here, recent decisions from the US Supreme Court, federal appellate courts, and more recently, even the California Supreme Court (see here) have clarified that class and collective action waivers in arbitration agreements, including those that waive employees’ right to bring a claim under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) … Continue Reading
In a long-awaited decision that employers hoped would clarify the enforceability of arbitration agreements under California law, the California Supreme Court in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation [PDF] split on the two issues before it. The California high court held that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable but that waivers of claims under the … Continue Reading
Following on from Ellen Inglis’ piece on Kerry Miller, the Burton Albion Football Club administrator who sent ‘sexy selfies’ to players half her age, comes a tale from ‘football’ on the other side of the Atlantic, of players, cheerleaders, rules and mild condescension. The Oakland Raiders, with their skull and crossbones logo and rabid fans, … Continue Reading
In a much anticipated follow-up to its 2011 decision in AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a class action waiver in a commercial arbitration agreement between American Express and merchants who accept its charge cards is enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act, even if the costs the individual merchants would … Continue Reading
Recently, the Supreme Court reinforced that in class action litigation, the courts must undertake a rigorous analysis of the Federal Rule’s prerequisites in certifying a class of litigants. As previously reported here, the Supreme Court addressed this issue in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes in 2011. In Dukes, the Supreme Court noted that trial courts … Continue Reading
