On April 24, 2019, the Supreme Court held that class arbitration
may only be invoked in arbitration agreements with express consent,
further limiting employees' and consumers' ability to bring
class actions where they have signed arbitration agreements.
Background
The case, Lamps Plus Inc. et al. v. Varela, No. 17-988,
2019 WL 1780275 (U.S. Apr. 24, 2019) involved a dispute between an
employee, Frank Varela, who alleged that his employer, Lamps Plus,
failed to protect his and other co-workers' personal data from
a 2016 hacking of their tax and income statements.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that ambiguous language relating to
class arbitration in Varela's arbitration agreement with Lamps
Plus did not prevent Varela from seeking class arbitration to
resolve the dispute because California state contract principles
interpret any ambiguous language against the drafter of the
agreement, which in this case was Lamps Plus.
