Eric B. Kingsley Labor and Employment Law Blog on Lawyers.com

AT&T Case set for Oral Argument on Tuesday

Friday, November 5, 2010 by Eric B. Kingsley

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The end of class actions may take place in Washington, D.C. at 10:00 am. EST on Tuesday November 9, 2010.  At that time the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue of arbitration and pre-emption under federal law.  In a recent decision of Stolt-Nielsen S.A., et al. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp., the court took a very strong view on the arbitability of class arbitration claims by indicating that silence in an agreement did not give consent to class arbitration.  The AT&T case goes much further in that if the AT&T case is reversed it would mean that an arbitration agreement even with a class action waiver or a silent construction would be forced into arbitration on an individual basis.  This would mean the end of employment and consumer claims in a real sense.  Any savvy corporation would draft these arbitration agreements so that they could only be pursued by way of individual arbitration.  With the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, it would be unlikely for at least two years and perhaps longer for any legislative fix.  We should hope that our esteemed jurists Scalia and Thomas who believe strongly in federalism will not impose blanket federal pre-emption to stop California from regulating arbitration agreements.

We shall see.

 
Posted at 13:43 PM
Topic: Labor and Employment
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