Opinion ID: 783759
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Duffield Correctly Decided

Text: 54 We reached our holding in Duffield after closely following the Supreme Court's instructions in Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., 500 U.S. 20, 111 S.Ct. 1647, 114 L.Ed.2d 26 (1991), that involved another federal anti-discrimination law, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). In Gilmer, the Supreme Court first reiterated that `having made the bargain to arbitrate, the party should be held to it unless Congress itself has evinced an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory rights at issue.' 2 500 U.S. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647 (quoting Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., 473 U.S. 614, 628, 105 S.Ct. 3346, 87 L.Ed.2d 444 (1985)). The Supreme Court then placed the burden on the plaintiff employee, who sought to avoid arbitration of his ADEA claim, to show that Congress intended to preclude a waiver of a judicial forum for ADEA claims. Id. The Supreme Court instructed that congressional intent to preclude arbitration could be found in any one of three sources: the text of the ADEA, its legislative history, or an `inherent conflict' between arbitration and the ADEA's underlying purposes. Id. The Supreme Court examined the ADEA in this regard and held that the plaintiff ha[d] not met his burden of showing that Congress, in enacting the ADEA, intended to preclude arbitration of claims under that Act. Id. at 35, 111 S.Ct. 1647. 55 In Duffield, we recited these instructions word for word: 56 Having made the bargain to arbitrate, the party should be held to it unless Congress itself has evinced an intention to preclude a waiver of judicial remedies for the statutory rights at issue. Mitsubishi, . . . 473 U.S. [at] 628, 105 S.Ct. 3346 . . . . The burden, therefore, is on Duffield to demonstrate that Congress intended to preclude a waiver of a judicial forum for [Title VII] claims in the manner mandated by the [securities registration application]. Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647 . . . . If such an intention exists, it will be discoverable in the text of [the act at issue], its legislative history, or an `inherent conflict' between arbitration and the [act's] underlying purposes. Id. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647. . . . 57 Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1190. Moreover, we closely followed these instructions in Duffield when we found that Congress' intent to preclude the compulsory arbitration of Title VII claims is conclusively demonstrated in the text and/or legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, as well as by an examination of its purposes. Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1189-90; compare with Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647. 58 Section 118 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 provides:  Where appropriate and to the extent authorized by law, the use of alternative means of dispute resolution, including. . . arbitration, is encouraged to resolve disputes arising under [Title VII]. Pub.L. No. 102-166, § 118, 105 Stat. 1071 (1991), reprinted in notes to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (emphasis added). Regarding the text of § 118, we observed that especially in light of the limiting phrases [w]here appropriate and to the extent authorized by law, it would seem entirely disingenuous to fasten onto . . . one word, i.e., encouraged, and conclude that Congress was boundlessly in favor of all forms of arbitration. Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1193. Indeed, because encourage indicates voluntariness and require indicates involuntariness, Congress' instruction in § 118 that arbitration . . . is encouraged if anything seems to contradict the majority's conclusion that arbitration may be required as a condition of employment under Title VII. In Duffield, we concluded that the text of [§ 118] is, at a minimum, ambiguous, and we then turned to the legislative history of that section. Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1193. Our detailed discussion in Duffield of § 118's legislative history unequivocally supports our holding in that case. Id. at 1195-98.
59 The majority, however, finds that our decision in Duffield was tainted with the faulty presumption that arbitration undermines the 1991 Act's purpose, maj. op. at 751, and was inconsistent with the Supreme Court's endorsement of arbitration. Maj. op. at 750. I disagree. Duffield contained no generalized attacks on arbitration. Maj. op. at 750 (quoting Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 30, 111 S.Ct. 1647). In Duffield, there were no challenges to the adequacy of arbitration procedures. Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 30, 111 S.Ct. 1647. Rather, as instructed by the Supreme Court in Gilmer, we conducted a scrupulous examination, Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1189, of the purposes, text, and legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The Duffield court recognized the general federal policy in favor of arbitration. Id. at 1199. But the court further recognized that it was not free to apply that policy here: Where Congress has manifested its intent, with regard to arbitration questions and otherwise, the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that the judiciary is not free to `legislate' its own contrary preferences. Id. See, e.g., Brogan v. United States, 522 U.S. 398, 408, 118 S.Ct. 805, 139 L.Ed.2d 830 (1998) (Courts may not create their own limitations on legislation, no matter how alluring the policy arguments for doing so.); Negonsott v. Samuels, 507 U.S. 99, 104, 113 S.Ct. 1119, 122 L.Ed.2d 457 (1993) ([A court's] task is to give effect to the will of Congress [when] its will has been expressed in reasonably plain terms.); Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647 (directing courts to follow congressional intent in arbitration context). 60 Contrary to the majority opinion, the view of Duffield was not that compulsory arbitration weakens Title VII, maj. op. at 750, which, of course, would be inconsistent with the Supreme Court's position that arbitration affects only the choice of forum, not substantive rights. Id. (citing EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc., 534 U.S. 279, 296 n. 10, 122 S.Ct. 754, 151 L.Ed.2d 755 (2002)). But rather, the conclusion of Duffield was that by enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress did not intend that employers could compel employees to sign compulsory arbitration agreements, coercing employees to arbitrate any future Title VII claim as a condition of their employment. Section 118 of the Civil Rights Act was intended to help deter employment discrimination by increasing claimants' choice of fora, Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1199 (emphasis in original), not by allowing employers to decrease employees' choice of fora through compulsory arbitration. As noted by the Seventh Circuit, [i]t would be at least a mild paradox for Congress, having in another amendment that it made to Title VII in 1991 conferred a right to trial by jury for the first time . . . in those same amendments, to prevent workers from obtaining jury trials in these cases. Pryner v. Tractor Supply Co., 109 F.3d 354, 363 (7th Cir.1997) (citation omitted). 61 Moreover, it is the majority's opinion that is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's endorsement of arbitration. Maj. op. at 750. Inherent within the Supreme Court's endorsement of arbitration, id., is the essential component of voluntariness. The Court has clearly reiterated that [a]rbitration under the [FAA] is a matter of consent, not coercion.  EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc., 534 U.S. 279, 294, 122 S.Ct. 754, 151 L.Ed.2d 755 (2002) (quoting Volt Info. Scis., Inc. v. Bd. of Trs. of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U.S. 468, 479, 109 S.Ct. 1248, 103 L.Ed.2d 488 (1989) (emphasis added)). Yet, the majority's holding allows employees to be coerced into signing an arbitration provision as a non-negotiable take-it-or-leave-it precondition of employment. 3 Thus, I agree with Duffield 's conclusion that there is a conflict between the purposes of Title VII as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and compulsory arbitration, i.e., requiring an employee to sign a compulsory arbitration agreement as a condition of taking or keeping a job. Brief for Representatives George Miller et al. as Amici Curiae at 2.
62 Section 118 provides that alternative dispute resolution methods, such as arbitration, are encouraged [w]here appropriate and to the extent authorized by law. 4 As stated above, encourage indicates voluntariness and require indicates involuntariness; thus Congress' instruction in § 118 that arbitration . . . is encouraged if anything contradicts the majority's conclusion that arbitration may be required as a condition of employment under Title VII. Yet, in part because there is no prohibitory language precluding compulsory arbitration, the majority concludes that the text of § 118 does not present any ambiguity suggesting that it may be intended to preclude compulsory arbitration. 5 I disagree. 63 It is true the text of § 118 does not contain prohibitory language. But the text does contain limiting phrases such as where appropriate and to the extent authorized by law. Furthermore, as we noted in Duffield, [w]hen `examin[ing] the language of the governing statute,' we must not be guided by `a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look[ ] to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy.' 144 F.3d at 1193 (quoting John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Harris Trust & Savs. Bank, 510 U.S. 86, 94-95, 114 S.Ct. 517, 126 L.Ed.2d 524 (1993)) (quoting Kelly v. Robinson, 479 U.S. 36, 43, 107 S.Ct. 353, 93 L.Ed.2d 216 (1986) (in turn quoting Offshore Logistics, Inc. v. Tallentire, 477 U.S. 207, 222, 106 S.Ct. 2485, 91 L.Ed.2d 174 (1986) (other quotation marks and citations omitted))). [T]he whole law and object and policy, id., of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and § 118 in particular, `was uniformly to expand employees' rights and `to increase the possible remedies available to civil rights plaintiffs.' Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1192 (quoting Prudential Ins. Co. of Am. v. Lai, 42 F.3d 1299, 1304 (9th Cir.1994) (emphasis added in Duffield )). I would conclude, therefore, as we concluded in Duffield, that the text of [§ 118] is, at a minimum, ambiguous. Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1193.
64 Because the majority found that the text of § 118 is unambiguous, the majority believes it is precluded from considering the legislative history that contains[s] language suggesting that Congress intended to retain the judicial forum. Maj. op. at 752. Assuming for the purposes of argument, that the majority opinion is correct and that the text of § 118 is unambiguous, the majority, nonetheless, errs in refusing to consider the legislative history of § 118. We must assume that if Congress intended the substantive protection afforded by a given statute to include protection against waiver of the right to a judicial forum, that intention will be deducible from text or legislative history. Mitsubishi, 473 U.S. at 628, 105 S.Ct. 3346 (emphasis added). According to Gilmer 's directives, followed in Duffield, Congress' intention will be discoverable in any one of three sources: the text of [the statute], its legislative history, or an `inherent conflict' between arbitration and the [statute's] underlying purpose. Gilmer, 500 U.S. at 26, 111 S.Ct. 1647 (emphasis added). The majority, however, overlooks Gilmer 's instructions and treats this case as a general case of statutory interpretation. See maj. op. at 752 (Because the text of § 118 is unambiguous, we are precluded from considering legislative history.). 65 Had the majority properly given credence to the legislative history, it would have concluded, as we concluded in Duffield, that it is the unusual force and clarity of the statute's legislative history that is ultimately dispositive in this case. Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1195. The majority cites the following language from the Committee Reports: 66 The Committee emphasizes . . . that the use of alternative dispute mechanisms is . . . intended to supplement, not supplant, the remedies provided by Title VII. Thus, for example, the committee believes that any agreement to submit disputed issues to arbitration, whether in the context of collective bargaining or in an employment contract, does not preclude the affected person from seeking relief under the enforcement provisions of Title VII. This view is consistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of Title VII in Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974). The Committee does not intend this section to be used to preclude rights and remedies that would otherwise be available. 67 Maj. op. at 752 n. 8 (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 40(I) at 97) (emphasis added). In surveying legislative history, [the Supreme Court has] repeatedly stated that the authoritative source for finding the Legislature's intent lies in the Committee Reports on the bill, which `represen[t] the considered and collective understanding of those Congressmen involved in drafting and studying the proposed legislation.' Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1195 (quoting Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 76, 105 S.Ct. 479, 83 L.Ed.2d 472 (1984) (in turn quoting Zuber v. Allen, 396 U.S. 168, 186, 90 S.Ct. 314, 24 L.Ed.2d 345 (1969))). 68 In the Committee Report, Congress specifically rejected a proposal that would have allowed employers to coerce their employees to sign compulsory arbitration agreements: H.R. 1 includes a provision encouraging the use of alternative means of dispute resolution to supplement, rather than supplant, the rights and remedies provided by Title VII. The Republican substitute, however, encourages the use of such mechanisms in place of judicial resolution. Thus, under the latter proposal employers could refuse to hire workers unless they signed a binding statement waiving all rights to file Title VII complaints. Such a rule would fly in the face of Supreme Court decisions holding that workers have the right to go to court, rather than being forced into compulsory arbitration, to resolve important statutory and constitutional rights, including equal opportunity rights. See, e.g., Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 94 S.Ct. 1011, 39 L.Ed.2d 147 (1974); McDonald v. City of West Branch, 466 U.S. 284, 104 S.Ct. 1799, 80 L.Ed.2d 302 (1984). American workers should not be forced to choose between their jobs and their civil rights. 69 H.R.Rep. No. 40(I), at 104. See Thompson v. Thompson, 484 U.S. 174, 185, 108 S.Ct. 513, 98 L.Ed.2d 512 (1988) (Congress' choice of several conflicting proposals provides strong evidence of its intent). As we stated in Duffield: 70 This rejection of the Republican proposal provides . . . strong evidence of Congress' intent, Thompson, 484 U.S. at 185, 108 S.Ct. 513, to preclude compulsory arbitration of civil rights claims and to encourage only voluntary agreements — agreements that do not require potential employees to waive their right to litigate in a judicial forum as a mandatory condition of employment. . . . The [House] Committee [on Education and Labor]'s view of § 118 was reiterated by key congressmen in the floor debates, who repeatedly stated that § 118 encouraged arbitration only where parties knowingly and voluntarily elect to use those methods. 137 Cong. Rec. S15478 (daily ed. Oct. 30, 1991) (statement of Sen. Dole); see also 137 Cong. Rec. H9548 (daily ed. Nov. 7, 1991) (statement of Rep. Hyde) (explaining that § 118 encourages arbitration where the parties knowingly and voluntarily elect to submit to such procedures). The most informed and important statements were made by Representative Edwards, the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Representative Edwards unequivocally explained during the debate immediately prior to the [Civil Rights] Act [of 1991]'s passage . . .:[] This section contemplates the use of voluntary arbitration. . ., not coercive attempts to force employees in advance to forego statutory rights. No approval whatsoever is intended of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Gilmer . . . or, any application or extension of it to Title VII. [][137 Cong. Rec. H9530 (daily ed. Nov. 7, 1991) (statement of Rep. Edwards)] (emphasis added). Finally, President Bush echoed Congress' understanding of the arbitration section in signing the Act, stating that section 118 encourages voluntary agreements between employers and employees to rely on alternative mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration. Statement of the President of the United States, Signing Ceremony, Pub.L. No. 102-166 (Nov. 21, 1991), reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 768, 769 (emphasis added). 71 Duffield, 144 F.3d at 1196-97 (footnote omitted). 72 There can be little doubt in the correctness of the conclusion by the Duffield court that arbitration agreements required by employers of their employees as a condition of employment are not  voluntary arbitration agreements between employers and employees as envisioned by Congress for Title VII. Because our discussion in Duffield of § 118's legislative history unequivocally supports our holding in that case, I would hold that Duffield was, and remains, good law.