In Daily Journal Article, McLaughlin and Petersen Look at Shift in Employment Claim Litigation

July 10, 2019

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Daily Journal has published the article “Strategies shift after Epic Systems,” written by Akin Gump labor and employment partner Gary McLaughlin and senior counsel Chris Petersen. The article looks at the fallout from the 2018 Supreme Court decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, which held that “class action waivers in employee arbitration agreements do not violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)”—a decision, the authors write, that paves the way “for potentially monumental changes in how employment claims are litigated.”

As a result of the ruling in Epic, McLaughlin and Petersen write, “attorneys representing workers face narrowing options for pursuing claims on behalf of groups of employees.” In California, though, employees, they say, are increasingly exploiting a loophole “in the form of the Private Attorneys General Act, a bounty hunter statute allowing plaintiffs to recover civil penalties on behalf of other employees that has been held to be exempt from mandatory arbitration.”

The article proceeds to describe some of the strategies that McLaughlin and Petersen see plaintiff attorneys using as a means of alternatives to traditional class litigation. They then cite some options available to employers.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

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