Category: Arbitration and Dispute Resolution

Supreme Court Rules Trial Court Must “Stay” Litigation Pending Arbitration

Resolving a split among federal appeals courts, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that federal district courts must stay, or temporarily suspend, legal proceedings rather than dismiss the lawsuit when they order the parties to participate in arbitration. The case, Smith v. Spizzirri, is an employee misclassification case involving a mandatory arbitration agreement. The Supreme Court’s ruling, published May...

Supreme Court Rules FAA Transportation Worker Exemption Hinges on Driver’s Job, Not Industry

In a case addressing the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act’s transportation worker exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled April 12 that a transportation worker does not have to work in the transportation industry to be exempt from an arbitration agreement. The unanimous ruling in Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries clarifies that the exemption’s applicability depends on the nature of the worker’s work rather...

Supreme Court Provides Guidance on Scope of FAA’s Transportation Worker Exemption

Over the last two decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) establishes a public policy favoring arbitration of disputes in lieu of litigation. There is one part of the FAA, however, that exempts certain workers “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce,” thus permitting these workers to sue in court. In recent years,...

Supreme Court Issues Another Important Arbitration Ruling in Morgan v. Sundance

A unanimous decision issued by the U.S. Supreme Court this week in the case of Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., No. 21-328 (U.S. May 23, 2022), the latest in a series of important arbitration rulings handed down by the High Court in recent years, creates even further incentive for an employer to act promptly when it seeks to compel arbitration. The...