In a highly anticipated decision, the United States Supreme Court today held that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require public sector employees who are not members of a union to pay any union dues, even when a portion of those dues is attributable to the costs of collective bargaining on behalf of all employees. Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, 585
Supreme Court
Employers Win Big In Two New U.S. Supreme Court Cases
By Tony Oncidi on
Univ. of Tex. S.W. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. ___, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 4704 (Jun. 24, 2013)
The Supreme Court ruled that a plaintiff asserting retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) must prove that the retaliation was the “but for” cause of the employer’s adverse action. In a five-to-four decision, the Court rejected the lower court’s…
State Limitations On Arbitration Agreements Are Preempted By Federal Law
By Tony Oncidi on
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011)
In this landmark new opinion, the United States Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) prohibits states from conditioning the enforceability of an arbitration agreement on the availability of class action arbitration procedures. Although this case arose in the consumer context (it involved AT&T’s charging sales tax for “free phones”), it has far-reaching…
US Supreme Court to Review Massive Class Action Certification
By David Gross on
On December 6, 2010, the United States Supreme Court granted Wal-Mart’s petition for certiorari, agreeing to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision [pdf] to permit certification of a class of 500,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. This litigation, which has been ongoing for nearly a decade, alleges sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against…