Suppose you have your employees’ sign agreements to arbitrate all of their employment disputes. (I’ve talked about arbitration agreements in many posts before.)
Can you have an arbitration agreement that says that an employee is precluded from bringing a Title VII (race or gender discrimination) class action claim in Court?
Employees have argued that
A few weeks ago, I indicated (in posts here and here) that the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case would have a huge impact on forcing arbitrations of employment matters and limiting class actions.
An important new federal District Court case in Connecticut decided yesterday, D’Antuono v. Service Road Corp., (download here) has shown that to be the case exactly.
But, coming from the school of “you can’t make this stuff up”, it is remarkable that the case that is deciding this issue is one grounded in the claims of “exotic dancers” who allege that they were misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees.
(How can the strip club claim that the individuals were independent contractors? While it is not relevant to the court’s decision here, the dancers signed “leases” to the “performance space”. Within those leases were arbitration provisions. The Court did not decide that issue, though if you’re interested, I discussed a similar case back in January here. )
What is important for all employers to know is that here, the central issue in this case was whether the agreement to arbitrate (found in a lease agreement between the exotic dancer (as “tenant”) and the strip club (as “landlord”) was enforceable. The Court said that it was. In doing so, the Court forced the plaintiffs to arbitrate their FLSA claims and remove the specter of a collection action, finding that the plaintiffs gave up that right in their case.Continue Reading In Titillating Case, Court Compels Strip Club Dancers to Engage Individually …in Arbitration
My colleague, Joshua Hawks-Ladds, has this post regarding an important new case that further explains the breadth of the preemption effect of the Federal Arbitration Act, a case he handled on behalf of our client, Ulti-Mate Connector, Inc.
Last week was a watershed moment for arbitration preemption cases, both at the federal and state level.
Employers who have shunned using arbitration agreements for fear that they will be overturned, will want to take a look at a recent federal court decision that uph
eld an arbitration agreement that had provisions that some would consider very pro-employer.
In Pomposi v. GameStop, Inc. (download here), the employer moved to dismiss a