As someone who represents employers, I’ve long been a proponent of arbitration as a way to limit exposure to employment claims. I have colleagues who disagree and I recognize that it’s a complicated issue. So starting about five years ago, I’ve been laying out what I saw as the pros and cons of mandatory workplace
Employment Arbitration
Judge Explains Reasons for Banning Enforcement of AB 51 and Preserving Workplace Arbitration in California
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Advice & Counseling, Employment Litigation
AB 51, which restricts workplace arbitration, was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2020. On December 30, 2019, US District Judge Kimberly Mueller granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the legislation from taking effect. On January 31, 2020, she issued a preliminary injunction extending the ban, and promised to explain her…
Court Further Postpones AB 51 (Restricting Workplace Arbitration) From Taking Effect
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Advice & Counseling, Employment Litigation
AB 51, which restricts workplace arbitration, was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2020. On December 30, 2019, US District Judge Kimberly Mueller granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the legislation from taking effect. She did so in response to a lawsuit by the California Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups arguing…
Court Stops AB 51 (Restricting Workplace Arbitration) From Taking Effect
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Advice & Counseling, Employment Litigation
We’ve noted before that AB 51 – the California legislature’s latest attempt to attack workplace arbitration – has significant legal flaws. On December 30, 2019, US District Judge Kimberly Mueller granted a temporary restraining order to prevent the legislation from taking effect on January 1, 2020. Judge Mueller ruled that the employer groups bringing the…
Employer Group Sues to Block AB 51’s Ban on Arbitration
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Employment Litigation
We’ve been blogging about attacks on workplace arbitration for over ten years now. (See, for example, this October 2009 post.) AB 51 represents the latest attempts by plaintiffs’ attorneys to ensure that their clients have continued access to employee-friendly juries, rather than to arbitrators with experience understanding and applying the relevant law. We’ve written…
What’s Behind the Battle Over Workplace Arbitration?
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Employment Litigation
We’ve been talking a lot about employment arbitration since the passage of AB 51. We’ve discussed the bill itself, and we’ve reassessed the pros and cons of workplace arbitration since its passage. But what’s all the fuss about? It seems that every legislative session in California, we get a new bill attempting to do…
Another Benefit of Arbitrating Employment Disputes
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Employment Litigation
One of my least favorite phrases in blogging is “repurposing content.” The verb “repurposing” hurts my ears. You can give something a purpose, but you’re not “purposing” it. And if “purposing” isn’t a verb, how did “repurposing” become one?
While I hate the term, I love the concept. We’ve posted to this blog over 550…
New Arbitration Protections for CA Employees
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Employment Litigation
California’s legislature has passed two new statutes that increase the protections for employees arbitrating workplace disputes.
SB 1007, which passed on September 1, 2016, gives any party to arbitration proceedings “the right to have a certified shorthand reporter transcribe any deposition, proceeding, or hearing as the official record.” I routinely advise employers to have…
The Pros and Cons of Requiring Workplace Arbitration
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
Posted in Employment Litigation
We’ve written extensively about mandatory workplace arbitration. But it was still an honor when CEB, a program of the University of California that is cosponsored by the State Bar of California, asked me to write a guest post for their CEBlog on the pros and cons of implementing such a program. You can read that…
Judicial Hostility to Employment Arbitration Flares up in 9th Circuit
By Jeffrey D. Polsky on
When you draft employment arbitration agreements, it’s not enough to know what the law is. You should also know what the law will be at the time that someone challenges the agreement. Since this area of law changes continuously, that’s pretty hard to do without a crystal ball.
For a while, some courts in California…