On September 7, 2022, NELA joined NELP in filing an amicus brief in the 2nd Circuit case Bille, et al v. Coverall North America, Inc. This brief addresses the serious harms of forcing arbitration on low-wage workers and urges the 2nd Circuit to ensure that workers can return to court in the event that unscrupulous employers attempt to exploit the arbitration system. In this case, employer Coverall attempted to bypass earlier commitments to cover the costs of arbitration and when the arbitration was closed because of default, contested the district court decision to lift the stay on litigation. As the brief concludes, “Although the district court went farther than it should have in trying to preserve arbitration in this case, it reached the right result–Coverall waived its right to arbitrate by abusing the system, and when its insistence on forcing Reeves to pay led to AAA closing the case, arbitration was ‘had.’ ” NELA is grateful to Richard J. Burch, Brucker Burch PLLC (TX) and NELA Member Michael Scimone, Outten & Golden (NY) for taking the lead on the brief, and Michael T. Anderson, Murphy Anderson PLLC (MA) and Catherine K. Ruckelshaus (NELP) for their invaluable support.
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NELP IBT EPI NELA Amicus Brief – New Prime, Inc. v. Oliveira (U.S. Supreme Court)
On July 25, 2018, NELA joined the Economic Policy Institute and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in supporting an amicus brief authored by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in New Prime, Inc. v. Oliveira, pending currently in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case concerns whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) exemption of “contracts of employment” from its coverage applies to clauses purporting to treat workers as independent contractors, and whether the resolution of that question may properly be delegated to an arbitrator. In addition to arguing that the contract at issue in this case should be exempt under the plain language of the FAA, the amicus brief adds essential context by detailing the independent contractor misclassification problems endemic in the trucking industry and the abuses of workers they engender, in addition to the detrimental effects they have on other employers, state budget and tax coffers, and on employers’ economic incentives to misclassify more drivers. The brief was authored by NELA member Catherine K. Ruckelshaus and Ceilidh Gao of NELP.
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