Is Duffield Still Good Law, Given Intervening Supreme Court Precedent?
In Luce, Forward, the EEOC sought a ruling broader than that of Duffield itself. Duffield had held that an employer cannot enforce a signed agreement to arbitrate Title VII claims. The EEOC argued, drawing upon Duffield’s language, that the employer can’t even make an employee sign such an agreement in the first place. The California district court that heard the Luce, Forward case accepted the EEOC’s argument, and ruled against the law firm, and in favor of the employee. The law firm then appealed, and last September, the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel issued its ruling. To the surprise of a lot of people, the panel held that Duffield is no longer good law in the Ninth Circuit. The panel reasoned that intervening U.S. Supreme Court precedent had effectively overturned it. The panel pointed, in particular, to the 2001 case of Circuit City v. Adams. There, an employee had sued his employer under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The employer had relied, in defense,
