On March 25, 2019, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed into law
a bill that reaffirms an employer's right to use arbitration
agreements. The law substantively amends the language of two state
statutes: KRS § 336.700 and KRS § 417.050.
This development comes on the heels of the Kentucky Supreme
Court's controversial decision last September in Northern
Kentucky Area Development District v. Snyder, Case No.
2017-SC-00277, in which the court held that KRS § 336.070 bars
government agencies from requiring mandatory arbitration as a
condition of employment. The court specifically rejected Federal
Arbitration Act (FAA) preemption, which should still have applied
and precluded the holding. While the Snyder decision
remains non-final, with a petition for rehearing pending, the
plaintiff's bar had already begun to try to capitalize on broad
language in the holding to assert that it also applied to private
employers. At a minimum, the decision complicated the
