Yesterday, a divided Supreme Court announced its decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, affirming the principle of private contract over the interests of the class-action legal industry.
Arbitration is a form of "Alternative dispute resolution"-essentially, an agreement to resolve differences by going to a private arbiter rather than to a civil court, though courts can and do review arbitration clauses for fairness.
Writing for the Court, Gorsuch emphasizes, "This Court has never read a right to class actions into the NLRA-and for three quarters of a century neither did the National Labor Relations Board." Indeed, as recently as 2010, the general counsel of the NLRB observed that there were good policy reasons for employers and employees to be able to enjoy "The relative simplicity and informality of resolving claims before arbitrators" and "Opined that the validity of such agreements 'does not involve consideration of the policies of the National Labor Relations Act.'".
The first federal appeals court to hear a challenge to the NLRB ruling, the Fifth Circuit in Murphy Oil, reversed the administrative body's decision.
Eventually, a few of them deferred to the agency's interpretation under the "Chevron doctrine," the name given the rule promulgated in a Supreme Court decision permitting agencies great leeway to interpret their own enabling statutes.
As Gorsuch's opinion notes, arguing that two congressional statutes conflict ordinarily requires "a stout uphill climb." The Supreme Court hesitates to infer that one statute overrides another, absent "a clearly expressed congressional intention." This hesitance is based in the Court's respect for Congress as a coordinate branch of government-a branch that knows how to say so when it wants one statute to trump another.
NPR invokes the #MeToo movement and concludes that "The court's decision means that tens of millions of private nonunion employees will be barred from suing collectively over the terms of their employment." Writing in the New York Times, Terri Gerstein and Sharon Block of Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program sidestep the legal dispute altogether and, echoing Ginsburg, simply ask Congress to amend the statutes and reverse the Court.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/epic-decision-15926.html
Arbitration is a form of "Alternative dispute resolution"-essentially, an agreement to resolve differences by going to a private arbiter rather than to a civil court, though courts can and do review arbitration clauses for fairness.
Writing for the Court, Gorsuch emphasizes, "This Court has never read a right to class actions into the NLRA-and for three quarters of a century neither did the National Labor Relations Board." Indeed, as recently as 2010, the general counsel of the NLRB observed that there were good policy reasons for employers and employees to be able to enjoy "The relative simplicity and informality of resolving claims before arbitrators" and "Opined that the validity of such agreements 'does not involve consideration of the policies of the National Labor Relations Act.'".
The first federal appeals court to hear a challenge to the NLRB ruling, the Fifth Circuit in Murphy Oil, reversed the administrative body's decision.
Eventually, a few of them deferred to the agency's interpretation under the "Chevron doctrine," the name given the rule promulgated in a Supreme Court decision permitting agencies great leeway to interpret their own enabling statutes.
As Gorsuch's opinion notes, arguing that two congressional statutes conflict ordinarily requires "a stout uphill climb." The Supreme Court hesitates to infer that one statute overrides another, absent "a clearly expressed congressional intention." This hesitance is based in the Court's respect for Congress as a coordinate branch of government-a branch that knows how to say so when it wants one statute to trump another.
NPR invokes the #MeToo movement and concludes that "The court's decision means that tens of millions of private nonunion employees will be barred from suing collectively over the terms of their employment." Writing in the New York Times, Terri Gerstein and Sharon Block of Harvard Law School's Labor and Worklife Program sidestep the legal dispute altogether and, echoing Ginsburg, simply ask Congress to amend the statutes and reverse the Court.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/epic-decision-15926.html
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