A case that could affect employers’ ability to curb class litigation by writing mandatory arbitration clauses into their employee benefit plans is heating up in the Seventh Circuit, after the AARP and public interest advocacy group Public Justice PC filed briefs criticizing these clauses as corporate attempts to undermine federal worker protections and retirement security.
Benefit plan clauses that attempt to block class lawsuits in favor of individual arbitration actions represent an erosion of the worker protections of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and a blow to the retirement security of workers who depend on their employers to prudently ...