6 ms·

CA's Prohibition on Workplace Arbitration Agreements Overturned by 9th Circuit

75 points by gnicholas 4y ago

zackees 4y ago
[dead]
yieldcrv 4y ago
Appalling, lets get the full ninth circuit to review This relies on that federal court to uphold, which the same one did in 2021, otherwise I don't see a way around it and I’m often pretty good at finding that
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I don’t see the point. The SC is so stacked that the outcome is pretty much a given.
  - chadash 4y ago
    Parent isn’t saying SC. A decision at the federal appeals level can sometimes be reviewed “en bank” by a larger group of judges in that same circuit. It’s not common as far as I know but it happens occasionally. But it’s different than the Supreme Court taking the case.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      Yeah, I was just anticipating the next step even if they disagree in the next appeal.
olliej 4y ago
Basically: according to the court your employer can require you to agree to forced arbitration as you have the freedom to be homeless and starve instead, so it's a free and fair agreement and not remotely coercive.
- baggy_trough 4y ago
  Yes, because you can get a different job.
  - Reptur 4y ago
    You can until they've all been bought up by a couple of billionaire owned conglomerates. An example being 6 corporations controlling 90% of all mainstream media. As things progress, we'll see further concentration because the name of the game is grow or fail. This is just further backslide of worker's rights in a long history of backslide.
    - SideQuark 4y ago
      There are literally millions of employers in the US [1]. They're all bought up by some secret cabal of magic and unified billionaires wizards. >As things progress, we'll see further concentration Except recent trends are more companies, not less, as registrations of new entrants increased during COVID [2]. >This is just further backslide of worker's rights in a long history of backslide. Yet those backslidden workers make more now than pretty much any time in all of history and more than in any other place in the world... [3,4] [1] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html [2] https://www.commerceinstitute.com/new-businesses-started-every-year/#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%20US%20Census,new%20businesses%20is%20trending%20up https://www.commerceinstitute.com/new-businesses-started-eve.... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
      - sofixa 4y ago
        > There are literally millions of employers in the US Now do how many railways or airlines or TV groups or newspapers there are. People with specific skills might have a specific profession (e.g. a journalist) for which their options for employment are extremely limited. Of course they can go and work at McDonalds, but that's not really a great option, is it?
mLuby 4y ago
The core argument is that the state law is nullified because it goes against the spirit (though not the letter) of the federal law. Feels like that introduces more unintended consequences than if they'd just left it up to Congress to patch the loophole the state found. ¿Usable Sing on, you against youngins, o' owners? O.G. yunions It's fractal in a way: federal law enjoys unequal power over state law, so why would they see an issue with that same imbalance at smaller scales?
- wahern 4y ago
  Because the real reason for the Supreme Court's jurisprudence regarding the Federal Arbitration Act over the past 30 years is the reduction of Federal case load (via diversity jurisdiction). To overturn long-settled precedent they had to apply a series of novel rationales that continue to metastasize. Not that the conservatives on the court are complaining as it (probably not coincidentally) has coincided with a conservative political shift that, like their liberal counterparts from earlier eras, see Federal courts generally and SCOTUS in particular as a vehicle for imposing conservative policies on liberal states.
biggc 4y ago
> California’s law sought to evade that policy and, in doing so, would have denied employers and employees alike of the benefits of arbitration If arbitration is so great for everyone we shouldn’t need provisions in employment contracts!
- johngladtj 4y ago
  ???
  - Beldin 4y ago
    I understood parent as: "in case X is truly better than alternatives, people will choose X without being forced to" applied for X=arbitration.
    - throwaway49490 4y ago
      How will the employees enforce their choice if not by forcing the employer to put it into their employment contract?
      - throw_m239339 4y ago
        > How will the employees enforce their choice if not by forcing the employer to put it into their employment contract? These provisions are forced onto employees by employer at first place. Put the choice in the contract. The employee is free to seek arbitration or not. Of course, you can always claim the employee isn't forced to sign that contract, but there is an obvious power imbalance in any case.
        throwaway49490 4y ago
        Depends on the kind of employee. I doubt that the one making $200k+ and options is forced to do anything.
        4y ago
raldi 4y ago
The tenth amendment reads: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people What part of the constitution grants Congress the power to impose its will on California in this case?
- fwlr 4y ago
  Wikipedia claims Congress has passed over 30,000 statues in its time. That is however many millions of words worth of edifice and cruft surrounding the Constitution and subtly altering its meaning and influence over time. (That’s the mechanism by which Federal law has granted itself this power. Whether it should have is another question, of course.)
- mpweiher 4y ago
  Usually: the commerce clause.
  - metiscus 4y ago
    Wickard v. Filburn[1] effectively took nearly all of the constitutional scope limits off of the federal government. All the government needs to justify interference in the most mundane of human interactions is to find a broader economic nexus in the activity. Summarized "The Court reasoned that Congress could regulate activity within a single state under the Commerce Clause, even if each individual activity had a trivial effect on interstate commerce, as long as the intrastate activity viewed in the aggregate would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. To this extent, the opinion went against prior decisions that had analyzed whether an activity was local, or whether its effects were direct or indirect."[2] [1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/ [2] https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
    - LocalH 4y ago
      One of the single worst decisions in US judicial history.
Aeolun 4y ago
If it’s only the employers pushing for arbitration it can’t possibly be because it’s better for the employee.
- SamReidHughes 4y ago
  It is better because arbitration agreements in a competitive employment market makes wages to be pushed higher or consumer prices to be pushed lower. The possibility of a jury trial adds costs because, the trials are more expensive, for starters, but also juries can and do give unjust levels of damages.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    [dead]
  - lakecresva 4y ago
    > It is better because arbitration agreements in a competitive employment market makes wages to be pushed higher or consumer prices to be pushed lower. Prove it. A very small fraction of civil cases are resolved by jury verdict. If the plaintiff's case has merit, the point is to get the other side to settle. You sound like a big markets guy. What could be more fair than the parties working out a settlement deal between themselves? No middleman or arbitrator needed.
    - SamReidHughes 4y ago
      Prove that competitive pressures reduce margins and unbound risk reduces investment? Sorry but you just have to understand how the world works: This is a natural consequence of people having multiple choices and picking the best one. > What could be more fair than the parties working out a settlement deal between themselves? What's more fair is, obviously, working out a settlement deal where the alternative is arbitration, instead of a jury. (Why are you teeing up such easy questions?)
      - lakecresva 4y ago
advisedwang 4y ago
Looks like we might be getting a return to the Lochner era, where the "right to form contracts" was used to strike down state laws forbidding child labour, setting working hours maximums, creating minimum wages etc.

75 points by gnicholas 4y ago

[dead]

Appalling, lets get the full ninth circuit to review This relies on that federal court to uphold, which the same one did in 2021, otherwise I don't see a way around it and I’m often pretty good at finding that

Aeolun 4y ago
I don’t see the point. The SC is so stacked that the outcome is pretty much a given.
- chadash 4y ago
  Parent isn’t saying SC. A decision at the federal appeals level can sometimes be reviewed “en bank” by a larger group of judges in that same circuit. It’s not common as far as I know but it happens occasionally. But it’s different than the Supreme Court taking the case.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Yeah, I was just anticipating the next step even if they disagree in the next appeal.

olliej 4y ago

Basically: according to the court your employer can require you to agree to forced arbitration as you have the freedom to be homeless and starve instead, so it's a free and fair agreement and not remotely coercive.

baggy_trough 4y ago
Yes, because you can get a different job.
- Reptur 4y ago
  You can until they've all been bought up by a couple of billionaire owned conglomerates. An example being 6 corporations controlling 90% of all mainstream media. As things progress, we'll see further concentration because the name of the game is grow or fail. This is just further backslide of worker's rights in a long history of backslide.
  - SideQuark 4y ago
    There are literally millions of employers in the US [1]. They're all bought up by some secret cabal of magic and unified billionaires wizards. >As things progress, we'll see further concentration Except recent trends are more companies, not less, as registrations of new entrants increased during COVID [2]. >This is just further backslide of worker's rights in a long history of backslide. Yet those backslidden workers make more now than pretty much any time in all of history and more than in any other place in the world... [3,4] [1] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb.html [2] https://www.commerceinstitute.com/new-businesses-started-every-year/#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%20US%20Census,new%20businesses%20is%20trending%20up https://www.commerceinstitute.com/new-businesses-started-eve.... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income [4] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > There are literally millions of employers in the US Now do how many railways or airlines or TV groups or newspapers there are. People with specific skills might have a specific profession (e.g. a journalist) for which their options for employment are extremely limited. Of course they can go and work at McDonalds, but that's not really a great option, is it?

mLuby 4y ago

The core argument is that the state law is nullified because it goes against the spirit (though not the letter) of the federal law. Feels like that introduces more unintended consequences than if they'd just left it up to Congress to patch the loophole the state found. ¿Usable Sing on, you against youngins, o' owners? O.G. yunions It's fractal in a way: federal law enjoys unequal power over state law, so why would they see an issue with that same imbalance at smaller scales?

wahern 4y ago
Because the real reason for the Supreme Court's jurisprudence regarding the Federal Arbitration Act over the past 30 years is the reduction of Federal case load (via diversity jurisdiction). To overturn long-settled precedent they had to apply a series of novel rationales that continue to metastasize. Not that the conservatives on the court are complaining as it (probably not coincidentally) has coincided with a conservative political shift that, like their liberal counterparts from earlier eras, see Federal courts generally and SCOTUS in particular as a vehicle for imposing conservative policies on liberal states.

biggc 4y ago

> California’s law sought to evade that policy and, in doing so, would have denied employers and employees alike of the benefits of arbitration If arbitration is so great for everyone we shouldn’t need provisions in employment contracts!

johngladtj 4y ago
???
- Beldin 4y ago
  I understood parent as: "in case X is truly better than alternatives, people will choose X without being forced to" applied for X=arbitration.
  - throwaway49490 4y ago
    How will the employees enforce their choice if not by forcing the employer to put it into their employment contract?
    - throw_m239339 4y ago
      > How will the employees enforce their choice if not by forcing the employer to put it into their employment contract? These provisions are forced onto employees by employer at first place. Put the choice in the contract. The employee is free to seek arbitration or not. Of course, you can always claim the employee isn't forced to sign that contract, but there is an obvious power imbalance in any case.
      - throwaway49490 4y ago
        Depends on the kind of employee. I doubt that the one making $200k+ and options is forced to do anything.
        4y ago

raldi 4y ago

The tenth amendment reads: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people What part of the constitution grants Congress the power to impose its will on California in this case?

fwlr 4y ago
Wikipedia claims Congress has passed over 30,000 statues in its time. That is however many millions of words worth of edifice and cruft surrounding the Constitution and subtly altering its meaning and influence over time. (That’s the mechanism by which Federal law has granted itself this power. Whether it should have is another question, of course.)
mpweiher 4y ago
Usually: the commerce clause.
- metiscus 4y ago
  Wickard v. Filburn[1] effectively took nearly all of the constitutional scope limits off of the federal government. All the government needs to justify interference in the most mundane of human interactions is to find a broader economic nexus in the activity. Summarized "The Court reasoned that Congress could regulate activity within a single state under the Commerce Clause, even if each individual activity had a trivial effect on interstate commerce, as long as the intrastate activity viewed in the aggregate would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. To this extent, the opinion went against prior decisions that had analyzed whether an activity was local, or whether its effects were direct or indirect."[2] [1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/111/ [2] https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111
  - LocalH 4y ago
    One of the single worst decisions in US judicial history.

Aeolun 4y ago

If it’s only the employers pushing for arbitration it can’t possibly be because it’s better for the employee.

SamReidHughes 4y ago
It is better because arbitration agreements in a competitive employment market makes wages to be pushed higher or consumer prices to be pushed lower. The possibility of a jury trial adds costs because, the trials are more expensive, for starters, but also juries can and do give unjust levels of damages.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  [dead]
- lakecresva 4y ago
  > It is better because arbitration agreements in a competitive employment market makes wages to be pushed higher or consumer prices to be pushed lower. Prove it. A very small fraction of civil cases are resolved by jury verdict. If the plaintiff's case has merit, the point is to get the other side to settle. You sound like a big markets guy. What could be more fair than the parties working out a settlement deal between themselves? No middleman or arbitrator needed.
  - SamReidHughes 4y ago
    Prove that competitive pressures reduce margins and unbound risk reduces investment? Sorry but you just have to understand how the world works: This is a natural consequence of people having multiple choices and picking the best one. > What could be more fair than the parties working out a settlement deal between themselves? What's more fair is, obviously, working out a settlement deal where the alternative is arbitration, instead of a jury. (Why are you teeing up such easy questions?)
    - lakecresva 4y ago

advisedwang 4y ago

Looks like we might be getting a return to the Lochner era, where the "right to form contracts" was used to strike down state laws forbidding child labour, setting working hours maximums, creating minimum wages etc.