On Oct. 3, 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Epic Systems v. Lewis, No. 16-285 (consolidated with Ernst & Young v. Morris, No. 16-300 and NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, No. 16-307).

These cases deal with employees who were required to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of their employment promising to resolve disputes with their employers through arbitration and waiving their rights to bring class or collective arbitrations. At their core, these cases concern how two federal statutes—the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—interact. They also raise the basic question whether the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency responsible for enforcing the NLRA, has authority to regulate arbitration agreements in the nonunion sector.