Supreme Court Docket Report - Decision Alert - April 1, 2009

Originally published April 1, 2009

Keywords: Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co, employment-discrimination claim, collective-bargaining agreement, CBA, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ADEA, Pyett, National Labor Relations Act, NLRA, employment contract, Clean Water Act, powerplants, EPA

Today, the Supreme Court issued two decisions, described below, of interest to the business community.

14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, No.07-581 (previously discussed in February 19, 2008 Docket Report)

In Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36 (1974), the Supreme Court allowed a discharged employee to bring an employment-discrimination claim in federal court even though he had already engaged in arbitration of the claim under his union's collective bargaining agreement. In the years that followed, some courts construed Gardner-Denver and subsequent cases to preclude a union from agreeing, through a collective-bargaining agreement on behalf of its members, that the