Four Seasons Loses Bid to Send Mass Layoff Claims to Arbitration

The entities behind a Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan failed to show they’re entitled to make workers furloughed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic arbitrate layoff-related claims, the Second Circuit said Wednesday.

The lower court correctly determined that the federal and state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act claims were outside the scope of the parties’ arbitration agreement and that a judge, not an arbitrator, should make that decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said in an unpublished opinion.

The workers—who still haven’t been able to return to their jobs—filed a complaint in 2022 ...