           2009 |
APRIL 1, 2009, 3:50 P.M. ET Employees Must Pursue Age Claims in Arbitration, Supreme Court Finds WSJ WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled for employers who want unionized workers to pursue their age-discrimination claims through arbitration instead of a federal lawsuit. In a 5-4 decision Wednesday, the court said an arbitration agreement negotiated between an employer and a union is binding on workers and strips them of their option to take complaints to court. In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said: "We hold that a collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate age discrimination claims is enforceable as a matter of federal law." The lawsuit came after night-duty watchmen at a New York City office building were reassigned to jobs as night porters and light-duty cleaners. Their union challenged the reassignments but withdrew the age-discrimination complaints from arbitration. Their employer then asked the federal courts to force the complaints back into arbitration because that is what their union contract required. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled that "a collective bargaining agreement could not waive covered workers' rights to a judicial forum for causes of action created by Congress" like the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The high court's majority disagreed. "A union may agree to the inclusion of an arbitration provision in a collective bargaining agreement in return for other concessions from a lawyer," Mr. Thomas said. "Courts generally may not interfere in this bargained-for exchange." The four liberal justices dissented from the ruling, saying the Supreme Court has previously decided that unions can't bargain away employees' federal forum rights in discrimination cases. "There is no argument for abandoning precedent here," Justice David Souter said. In a separate finding, the court found that the federal government should pay federally appointed lawyers for working on state clemency requests for death-row inmates. Convicted murderer Edward Jerome Harbison wanted the government to pay for his federal public defender to represent him in a clemency petition to the Tennessee governor. But lower courts and the Justice Department said that federal public defenders can only be paid to work on cases in the federal system. The high court overturned that decision. The nation's Court of Appeals had split on the question, with some saying federal public defenders could also get taxpayer dollars for working on state clemency petitions. Mr. Harbison was convicted in the 1983 beating death of an elderly woman in Chattanooga, Tenn. Copyright © 2009 Associated Press |