NT Lakis lawyers have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief with the Supreme Court urging the Justices to review and reverse a federal appeals court ruling that invalidated a company’s arbitration agreement because it did not allow wage claims to be brought on a class or collective basis.
Our brief in Epic Systems v. Lewis urges the High Court to review and reverse a decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that relied on the rationale articulated previously by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that a class waiver contained in an arbitration agreement violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
We argue that the NLRB’s so-called “D.R. Horton” anti-class waiver rule conflicts with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which the High Court repeatedly has interpreted as expressing a federal policy favoring the enforcement of mandatory arbitration agreements — including those containing class waivers.
Our brief further points out that prior to the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in Epic Systems, every other federal appeals court to have considered the question had rejected the NLRB’s contention that the NLRA confers a non-waivable, substantive right to access class procedures, thus overriding the FAA’s command that arbitration agreements are to be enforced as written.
A copy of our brief to the Supreme Court in Epic Systems is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.