Justices Will Hear Challenges to Mandatory Employee Arbitration
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The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether companies can use employment contracts to prohibit workers from banding together to take legal action over workplace issues, reports The New York Times.
Adam Liptak writes that the court will consider three cases that follow a series of Supreme Court decisions endorsing similar provisions, generally in contracts with consumers. The question for the justices in the new cases is whether the same principles apply to employment contracts.
“In both settings, the challenged contracts typically require two things: that disputes be raised through the informal mechanism of arbitration rather than in court and that claims be brought one by one,” Liptak writes. “That makes it hard to pursue minor claims that affect many people, whether in class actions or in mass arbitrations.”