Mandatory Class Procedure Waivers on the Ropes?

Admittedly, this title is somewhat hyperbolic, but hope beats eternal and last week the Seventh Circuit created a circuit split on the Horton question, which I've addressed before on this blog and in a co-authored article with Tim Glynn.  And, full disclosure -- the two of us are among the signatories of an amicus brief before several courts of appeal.

Lewis v. Epic is well worth the read, but the Readers Digest version is that the court refused to enforce an agreement that precluded pursuit of class claims in either arbitration or court. The basis was the National Labor Relations Act's protection of workers' concerted actions for mutual aid and protection and its concomitant invalidation of agreements purporting to restrict that right. The prohibition of collective procedures in the arbitral tribunal "runs straight into the teeth of Section 7."

Nor did the FAA change that result. Epic argued that "even if the NLRA killed off the collective action waiver, the FAA resuscitates it," but the court didn't agree. Given that a court should try to reconcile potentially competing statutes, Epic faced a heavy burden in finding the FAA to trump the NLRB. Indeed, given the FAA's savings clause, which requires enforcing any contract "save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract," Judge Wood found no conflict at all between the two enactments.

Epic was circulated to the full Seventh Circuit, and no judge indicated a desire for en banc review. In normal circumstances, that would mean a petition for certiorari, but it seems unlikely than an understaffed Supreme Court will take the case. Presumably, the issue will continue to play out in the circuits that have not addressed the issue. In the meantime, however, the case has cast an epic uncertainty over waivers of collective or class relief in arbitration agreements.

CAS