Uber recently capitulated to public pressure and decided to no longer require victims of sexual harassment or assault to bring their individual claims against the company through arbitration. Uber, like many companies, puts arbitration clauses into the fine print of agreements that employees, drivers, and passengers must agree to in…
In an important decision for transportation workers, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a trucking company cannot use the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to force its truckers to bring their claims against the company in arbitration. As we have previously discussed, companies often force workers to…
The Washington Post recently ran a story about a class action sex discrimination case against Sterling Jewelers, the company behind Jared the Galleria of Jewelry and Kay Jewelers. The women who filed the case initiated it in 2008 but the public knew nothing about the case until recently because Sterling…
Former Fox News journalist Gretchen Carlson recently filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News news chief Roger Ailes that has received a lot of media attention. One aspect of the case that has received attention is Ailes’ efforts to force the lawsuit out of the public eye and into…
The New York Times recently ran a three part series of articles “examining how clauses buried in tens of millions of contracts have deprived Americans of one of their most fundamental constitutional rights: their day in court.” Corporations deprive Americans of this constitutional right by putting arbitration provisions in contracts,…
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court in the Midwest issued a decision that allowed an employer to potentially escape liability for illegally depriving its employees of wages. The case involved a chain of restaurants called Gusano’s Pizza that allegedly used an illegal tip pooling scheme to deprive employees of…
IBM recently discontinued its longstanding practice of including in its severance packages a disclosure of the ages and job titles of the other employees it had decided to lay off. IBM made these disclosures in order to comply with the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA). 29 U.S.C. sec. 626(f). …
Yesterday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that a group of janitors must pursue their claims against the cleaning company that employed them in arbitration, rather than through the court system. The janitors have brought claims against the company, Coverall North America, Inc., because they claim, among other things,…
Yesterday, Judge Torresen of the U.S. District Court of Maine held that Great Falls Insurance Company’s former CEO must pursue his age discrimination and related employment law claims against the company, and others affiliated with it, in arbitration. An arbitrator is a private individual, not affiliated with the courts, who…
Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which rules on federal appeals from Maine, other New England states, and Puerto Rico, held that an arbitrator would need to decide whether an employer’s arbitration agreement could shorten the statute of limitations on claims against it. In this case, the plaintiff…