The Supreme Court resolved 5 interesting labor and employment issues this year. The Justices also demonstrated that the Supreme Court is really good at reaching a consensus on employment issues (at least for this term) as 4 of these 5 cases were unanimous decisions.
Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido
The court found that state and local government are covered employers under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act irrespective of the number of employees that work for them (even those with less than 20 employees).
Even if you have less than the required number of employees you should still not discriminate against someone because of their age. No one deserves to work in a place where they do not feel welcome.
New Prime, Inc. v. Oliveira
Scotusblog does a great job summarizing the holding. The Supreme Court held “A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the ‘contracts of employment’ of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.” Essentially in this case the court concluded that independent contractors are covered under the exception for certain transportation workers and can pursue claims in court rather than in arbitration.
Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela
The only close case of the bunch was this case concerning arbitration. The vote was 5-4.
The court held that “Courts may not infer from an ambiguous agreement that parties have consented to arbitrate on a classwide basis.” Parties must essentially agree to arbitrate claims on a class basis or they cannot be compelled to arbitrate the claims as a class. Defendants cannot be forced by one individual claimant to arbitrate over much wider class claims unless the arbitration agreement contemplates this. This also means that companies can be forced to arbitrate hundreds, or even thousands of similar cases, which can be much more expensive if their agreements are silent on class arbitration.
Parker Drilling Management Services, Ltd. v. Newton
The court ruled that the Outer Shelf is not subject to overlapping state and federal jurisdiction. State law only applies when federal law is silent on an issue. If federal law applies to an issue then state law is inapplicable. In this case, this means that California wage and hour law does not apply to oil workers in the Outer Shelf.
Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis
The court ruled that Title VII’s charge filing or administrative exhaustion requirement is not a jurisdictional requirement but a claim processing rule that cannot be raised if a party fails to raise it in a timely manner. Basically, a case can continue against a company for a claim under Title VII if the company neglects to raise an objection that the party failed to first file a claim with the EEOC. Plaintiff attorney’s should not leave out claims or forgo filing with the EEOC for a claim under Title VII as noted by Jon Hyman from the Ohio Employer Law Blog:
Technically speaking, SCOTUS did expand the rights of employees by allowing them to skip the EEOC before going to court. But, this holding does not mean that a plaintiff can skip the EEOC without consequence. It just means that it would provide to an employer a defense to assert, and not a jurisdictional bar to the filing of the lawsuit in the first place. And, as the opinion aptly points out, “A Title VII complainant would be foolhardy consciously to take the risk that the employer would forgo a potentially dispositive defense.”
Indeed, a plaintiff’s lawyer that recommends this course of action should immediately put his or her malpractice carrier on notice. Why would a plaintiff’s lawyer file a suit that cannot possibly be won and would be subject to an easily granted motion to dismiss? It’s malpractice for a plaintiff’s lawyer to take that risk, and malpractice for a defense lawyer not to raise the defense and seek dismissal via an immediate motion.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed on all but one of the cases involving labor and employment issues this term. The only case that they disagreed on concerns an issue that has been a matter of serious political debate: the issue of arbitration. California is notorious for limiting arbitration (see this case about PAGA claims not being able to be arbitrated this case about PAGA claims not being able to be arbitrated and this is reflected in the partisan split on the issue this term.
Looking Ahead to the Labor and Employment Cases in the Supreme Court’s 2019-2020 Term
Next term is shaping up to be an interesting term. Here is list of cases that the court will consider next term. Some of the issues at play are: whether Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation (Altitude Express v. Zarda), whether a plaintiff must prove that their age was a but for cause for discrimination under the ADEA (Babb v. Wilkie), whether a claim of race discrimination under 42 USC § 1981 requires a plaintiff to show that their race was a motivating factor or if but-for causation must be established (Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media), whether the court can review the decision to end the DACA and whether that is lawful (Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California), and whether Title VII prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sex stereotyping (R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). It is going to be an exciting year at the Supreme Court next term for labor and employment attorneys and human resource professionals.
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