Question

Case: Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1612

Submit a written summary of the case above. To receive credit the summary must include a procedural and factual history of the case, an explanation of the legal question(s) addressed by the Court, the holding and order of the Court, an explanation of the argument of the majority Opinion as well as an explanation of the argument of the dissenting Opinion, and a reasoned explanation of whether the student agrees with the majority or dissenting Opinion.

Answer 1

Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1612

The case was petitioned by Epic Systems Corp and was heard at Madison, Wisconsin.

Epic systems is a healthcare data management software company. It requires its employees to sign an arbitration agreement, that any disputes with respect to their employment with Epic will be arbitrated individually. They also waive their benefit, class or collective, from the representative proceedings.

Former employee Jacob Lewis sued the company, that they had been denied overtime wages as per the Fair labour Standard Act, 1938. Epic systems pointed the waiver clause of the arbitration agreement. But, the district court said that the clause cannot be enforced, as it is against the rights of employees, as per the National Labour relations Act (NLRA). The U.S court of Appeals for the seventh circuit and the appellate court supported this decision and said that, it is unenforceable under Federal Arbitration Act(FAA) too.

There was 5-4 decision in this case and was delivered by Justice Neil Gorsuch on May 21, 2018. The Court held that no act can supersede the Federal Attribution act. Majority found that the FAA requires federal courts to allow enforcement of attribution agreements, as per the mentioned terms.The dissenting opinion was given by Justice Ruth Bader,Stephen Brayer,Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.They dissented that FAA shrinks the applicability of NLRA and there is power imbalance between the employers and employees.