Posted on 05/22/2018 11:27:34 AM PDT by ColdOne
The junior-most justice penned the 5-4 opinion siding with employers. The ruling was a victory for business and the Trump administration as it held that employers could require employees to sign class action waivers to bar them from banding together to fight legal disputes. It was Gorsuch's first big opinion for the conservatives and he had presumably been assigned to write it by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was part of the majority, along with Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Gorsuch said the opinion "did nothing to override" Congress' judgment. "Congress has instructed that arbitration agreements like those before us must be enforced as written," he said. The opinion triggered the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to do something she rarely does: read her dissent from the bench.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Wow, hope she didn't over exert herself.
Aren’t free people always free to associate with other free people and organize?
Does this court opinion negate this principle of liberty?
(Should I go and actually read the case and opinion?)
All of that is wonderful, but remember:
SCOTUS DOES NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY MAKE NATIONAL LAW.
CNN makes it sound like this was exceptional, but the decision itself was based on very basic legal principals.
The only reason it was a 5-4 decision is that there are too many left-leaning activists on the court.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the FAA makes individual arbitration agreements enforceable, and that neither the saving clause of the FAA or the NLRA operate to override that outcome. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion joined by Justices Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, with Thomas also writing a concurring opinion. Gorsuch wrote that in reviewing the intent of Congress in the passage of the NLRA and FAA, that through the FAA “Congress has instructed federal courts to enforce arbitration agreements according to their terms — including terms providing for individualized proceedings.”[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Systems_Corp._v._Lewis#Supreme_Court
“In other words, the employees were asking the Supreme Court to allow them to accept the terms of the employment agreement up front, and then decide to opt out when they don’t like the terms they agreed to, basically solely because it benefits them. To side with the employees in this case would have undermined the freedom of contract principle and allow the judicial branch to step in just because an employee got himself into a bad deal.
“That’s not how contract law should work, particularly under a constitutional analysis. This opinion highlights the basic difference in conservative versus liberal thinking of the proper role and function of the judicial branch under Article III. “
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/supreme-court-rules-that-contracts-mean-what-they-say
We need a couple more like Gorsuch.
Yes you should go read it. I haven’t, if you do please let me know what it says if you have time.
SCOTUS is going to have a hard time with this ruling someday when a clever employer inserts binding arbitration language that applies to sexual harassment or discrimination claims.
I don’t think the majority favored big business. They simply applied the law Congress passed. The court even implied that they might not think the contracts are fair, only that it is the law.
And this isn’t bad for employees, either. If they have a solid case, an attorney will take it on contingency, or a large group can fund the expense associated with arbitration, which is far lower than going to court. If they win in arbitration, they get all the money due to them and the employer pays their legal fees.
There are arbitration agreements between companies in separate countries that have potentially billions at stake, so it’s not like arbitration provisions are only to screw over the little guy.
I agree but recently a vocal group was calling him as bad Ruth Buzzy.
The SC didn’t “side with big business”, they adjudicated the case correctly. It was the liberals on the court who tried to twist the law into something it’s not because they emotionally sided with the employees.
In this case, employees signed agreements with their employer agreeing to resolve disputes through arbitration. No one forced them to sign. No one forced them to work for said employer. And the kicker is that the person at the very head of this “big business” that won is on the far left, but the corrupt MSM dare not mention that.
There are exemptions in place for certain types of claims, I’m just not sure what they are without looking them up.
Hence my tag-line...
How rude to follow the law as written by congress
“And the kicker is that the person at the very head of this “big business” that won is on the far left, but the corrupt MSM dare not mention that.”
“Far left” doesn’t really mean “pro-worker” anymore, even if it ever did.
Cnn is used to the special interest motivations of Leftwind Democrats, and may actually believe there was some such motive for Justice Gorsuch, but I would seriously doubt it.
Had the ruling had gone the other way it would have been a huge lawsuit magnate. The democrats wanted it because it would have been a huge cash cow for the trial lawyers as every two-bit ambulance chaser would now be able to file a class action lawsuit against any employer they wanted to shakedown.
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