Smith v. Spizzirri, 601 U.S. 472 (2024)Coinbase, Inc. v. Suski, 144 S. Ct. 1186 (2024)

In Smith, the Court held that under Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act, when a federal court determines that a dispute is subject to arbitration, and a party requests a stay of the court proceeding pending arbitration, Section 3 compels the court to issue

The Empire Struck Back last week when the California Court of Appeal held that the state’s latest back-door attempt to outlaw employment arbitration by any means necessary is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).  Hernandez v. Sohnen Enterprises, Inc., 2024 WL 2313710 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024).  As indicated in our earlier post on this topic, it was just a matter of time before

We invite you to review our newly-posted March 2024 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

Johnson v. Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC, 93 F.4th 459 (9th Cir. 2024)

The Ninth Circuit vacated a district court’s dismissal of a former employee’s “non-individual” Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims in the wake of the California Supreme Court’s holding in Adolph v. Uber Techs., Inc., 14 Cal. 5th 1104 (2023). Plaintiff in this case signed a contract with her employer (Lowe’s)

Hohenshelt v. Superior Court, 318 Cal. Rptr. 3d 475 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024)

For the seventh time since they became effective in 2020, the California Court of Appeal has published an opinion holding that Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §§ 1281.97 and 1281.98 truly mean what they say: “[I]f the [arbitration] fees or costs… are not paid [by the employer] within 30 days after the

When Congress passed and President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (“the Act”) last year, we predicted it was just the beginning of an all-out federal assault on arbitration. We weren’t wrong – so far, there are additional bills pending in Congress to exempt age and race discrimination and harassment claims from arbitration. See H.R.4120 – Protecting Older

We invite you to review our newly-posted July 2023 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

Duran v. EmployBridge Holding Co., 92 Cal. App. 5th 59 (2023)

In 2014, the California Supreme Court determined that Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims are immune from arbitration in Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC – which, unsurprisingly, led to an avalanche of PAGA claims being filed as plaintiffs’ lawyers scrambled to make their cases arbitration-proof (at least as to those pesky

Yesterday, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel revisited its own 2021 order and finally struck down California’s anti-mandatory employment arbitration law, Assembly Bill 51 (“AB 51”).  In an opinion drafted by the former dissenting judge, Judge Sandra Ikuta, the new majority declared AB 51 was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”).

The statute in question, signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2019, was California

We invite you to review our newly-posted November 2022 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include: