Petitions of the week
on Apr 10, 2024
at 11:52 am
The Petitions of the Week column highlights a number of cert petitions not too long ago filed within the Supreme Court docket. An inventory of all petitions we’re watching is out there here.
The Supreme Court docket’s 2022 resolution in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana was a victory for employers looking for to implement necessary arbitration clauses within the face of a landmark California worker-protection regulation. The court docket discovered that the California regulation was inconsistent with the federal arbitration regulation’s broad mandate that courts implement arbitration agreements. This week, we spotlight petitions that ask the court docket to think about, amongst different issues, whether or not California courts are appropriate that the regulation, regardless of the choice in Viking River, nonetheless permits employees to maintain disputes in court docket.
Twenty years in the past, California enacted the Personal Attorneys Basic Act, which permits employees to file lawsuits – on their very own behalf and on behalf of different workers – towards their employers for any violations of the California labor code. These lawsuits are referred to as consultant actions as a result of the worker is suing rather than the state, which receives the majority of any cash awarded on account of the lawsuit; the remaining funds are distributed amongst affected employees.
Johnathon Gregg signed as much as drive with Uber in California in 2016. When organising his account, he didn’t decide out of Uber’s arbitration settlement, which asks drivers to waive their proper to carry lawsuits underneath the PAGA, particularly, and agree extra broadly to deal with disputes with Uber in arbitration, relatively than in court docket, on a person foundation.
Two years later, Gregg filed a lawsuit in California state court docket. He argued that, underneath the PAGA, Uber had violated state regulation by classifying him and different drivers as impartial contractors relatively than workers.
Uber sought to implement the arbitration settlement. The state courts dominated in favor of Gregg, following a choice by the California Supreme Court docket that voided necessary arbitration agreements requiring employees to waive their rights underneath the PAGA.
Uber requested the justices to assessment the state court docket’s ruling. Whereas its petition was pending, the court docket issued its resolution in Viking River, holding that the PAGA is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act’s sweeping requirement for courts to implement arbitration agreements. An eight-justice majority dominated that, when an employment contract accommodates an arbitration clause, that clause have to be enforced towards an worker’s proper to carry a declare on behalf of themselves underneath the PAGA.
5 justices went additional, concluding that after a employee’s particular person declare goes to arbitration, the consultant claims ought to be dismissed as a result of they not have a proper to sue – referred to as standing – for accidents towards different employees on behalf of the state underneath the PAGA. In becoming a member of that second holding, nonetheless, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote individually to emphasise that “if this Court docket’s understanding of state regulation is flawed, California courts, in an acceptable case, can have the final phrase.”
After Viking River, the justices despatched Gregg’s case again to the California courts. A state appeals court docket granted Uber’s request to have the query whether or not Gregg ought to be categorised as an worker or an impartial contractor underneath California regulation determined by an arbitrator. Nevertheless it rejected Uber’s request to go additional and toss the consultant claims as nicely.
The California appeals court docket held that the five-justice majority in Viking River bought the state-law query flawed. As soon as Gregg was compelled to arbitrate his personal declare, the state court docket concluded, he didn’t lose the flexibility to carry consultant claims underneath the PAGA. As an alternative, the court docket reasoned, these claims ought to be placed on maintain till an arbitrator decides whether or not Uber wrongly categorised Gregg as an impartial contractor; if that’s the case, Gregg may then resume his effort to hunt the identical reduction for different Uber drivers in court docket. And that association is per the FAA, the state appeals court docket reasoned, as a result of it nonetheless permits the separation of Gregg’s particular person, arbitrable declare right into a “separate and distinct motion[].”
In Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Gregg, the rideshare firm asks the justices to reverse the state court docket’s ruling. Uber argues that the core of Viking River was a recognition that the FAA respects agreements to arbitrate in separate, particular person proceedings, and that California courts might not evade that federal mandate by reinterpreting the PAGA. “This Court docket ought to grant assessment,” the corporate writes, “and put a cease to the California courts’ end-run of the FAA and Viking River.”
In Lyft, Inc. v. Seifu, rival rideshare firm Lyft, which additionally considers its drivers to be contractors and asks them to comply with an identical arbitration clause when enrolling, asks the justices to grant assessment of and reverse a choice by one other California appeals court docket holding {that a} driver may preserve a consultant motion underneath the PAGA whereas an arbitrator decides their particular person declare to be reclassified as an worker.
An inventory of this week’s featured petitions is beneath:
John and Jane Parents 1 v. Montgomery County Board of Education
23-601
Points: (1) Whether or not, when a public college, by coverage, expressly targets mother and father to deceive them about how the varsity will deal with their minor youngsters, mother and father have standing to hunt injunctive and declaratory reduction in anticipation of the varsity making use of its coverage towards them; and (2) whether or not, assuming the mother and father have standing, a college coverage that requires college workers to cover from mother and father that their baby is transitioning gender in school if, within the baby’s or the varsity’s estimation, the mother and father is not going to be “supportive” sufficient of the transition, violates their basic parental rights.
Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Gregg
23-645
Situation: Whether or not the Federal Arbitration Act requires the whole severance of arbitrable particular person claims underneath the California Private Attorneys General Act from non-individual claims, with the person claims dedicated to a separate continuing.
Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission
23-704
Points: (1) Whether or not a basic change in decisional regulation can independently help reduction from a judgment underneath Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6); and (2) whether or not the Federal Commerce Fee can acquire compensatory equitable treatments as sanctions for civil contempt of a everlasting injunction underneath Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act when these treatments are usually not instantly out there underneath Part 13(b).
Rose v. PSA Airlines, Inc.
23-734
Situation: Whether or not non-tracing financial treatments, comparable to surcharge, can be found underneath 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3) to plan contributors and beneficiaries asserting breach of fiduciary obligation claims towards plan fiduciaries underneath the Worker Retirement Earnings Safety Act of 1974.
Israelitt v. Enterprise Services LLC
23-776
Situation: Whether or not the Individuals with Disabilities Act gives for damages (and due to this fact a trial by jury) in instances alleging that an employer has violated the act’s anti-retaliation provision.
