3 Reasons the Epic Systems Ruling Won't Sink #MeToo
Although the U.S. Supreme Court's blockbuster Epic Systems ruling that gave businesses a green light to use employment contracts to bar workers from bringing class actions will have a far-reaching impact on employment law, attorneys say it won't significantly reduce the volume of sexual harassment cases that arise as part of the #MeToo movement.
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Anthony Haller, a partner at Blank Rome LLP and a member of the firm's executive committee, noted that arbitration agreements with class waivers don't prevent an individual from filing a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces various workplace anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws, or from participating in a pattern-or-practice suit filed by the agency on behalf of aggrieved workers.
Haller also noted that many cases alleging sexual harassment are individual in nature and that the Epic Systems decision doesn't curtail the likelihood of those being brought, or being brought more often because of the #MeToo movement.
"I don't think Epic is going to affect in any significant way sexual harassment cases — the number that are filed and the manner in which they're brought," Haller said. "They are, in virtually all respects, so individualized that it would be impossible to bring them as a class action. So I don't think Epic really changes the landscape with respect to sexual harassment complaints. Obviously, the #MeToo movement and what's happened over the past year has radically changed that landscape, but that's separate from the Epic decision."
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"3 Reasons the Epic Systems Ruling Won't Sink #MeToo," by Vin Gurrieri was published in Law360 on May 22, 2018.