David Faustman argued before the California Supreme Court on April 3, 2014, in the pivotal case of Iskanian v. CLS Transportation. The central issue at hand in this case is whether class action waivers in employment arbitration agreements are enforceable in California.
Fox Rothschild has been handling this case on behalf of CLS Transportation since 2006. Our team previously prevailed at the trial level, and that decision was upheld by the California Court of Appeals, which held that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Concepcion v. AT&T overruled the state's Supreme Court decision in Gentry v. Superior Court.
The recent developments in the case have received coverage in both Law360 and The Recorder, which have indicated in their reporting on the case that the state supreme court appears to have no intentions of going against the U.S. Supreme Court's precedent and instead is likely to overrule its own decision in the 2007 Gentry case. The Gentry ruling prevented employers from enforcing class action waivers in arbitration agreements, while the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion holds that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws that pose obstacles to arbitration.
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