To stop California’s defiance of federal law, the US Supreme Court must weigh in on arbitration agreements.

California’s trial bar – the state’s fourth branch of government – has wedged itself between employers and workers, to make money at everyone else’s expense. And the third branch – the state judiciary – is shielding its confreres from federal scrutiny. The only hope? The Supreme Court of the United States steps in to shut this game down.

To explain: The Federal Arbitration Act exists to ensure that employers and employees can reach mutually beneficial agreements to arbitrate their disputes rather than go to court. Arbitration is cheaper and faster, and can often get better results not just for businesses, but also for employees. Those benefits, however, make employment arbitration unpopular with the billboard lawyers of the world because it deprives them of massive attorney fees and class action awards.

And nowhere is the trial lawyer lobby stronger than in California. It should come as no surprise, then, that the legislators and courts in the Golden State have spent the past three decades flouting the FAA, despite losing at the Supreme Court time and again.

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