U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Photo: ALM

A New York home care worker who accused her employer of pay violations under state and federal law must litigate her claims in arbitration, the Manhattan federal appeals court said in reversing a lower court's decision.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that an arbitration clause in a collective bargaining agreement between a union of home health care workers and Attending Homecare Services mandated that plaintiff Tatyana Abdullayeva's claims be hashed out privately.

The 16-page opinion overturned a 2018 ruling from U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York, which had initially denied Attending's motion to compel arbitration in the proposed class action, which alleged breaches of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act as well as New York labor law.

In the earlier decision, Weinstein held that the arbitration provision breached due process protections for Attending's workers and allowed, but did not require, arbitration for pay disputes. According to Weinstein, it was not “clear and unmistakable” that the union had agreed to arbitrate on behalf of its members under the CBA.

The Second Circuit, however, called Weinstein's application of that standard an “item of confusion” that marred his analysis. The panel said that under Second Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, “clear and unmistakable” applied only to the issue of whether a union had waived its members' right to bring certain statutory claims in court, and “not to the initial  question whether an arbitration agreement exists at all.”

“Put differently, we ask not whether the parties clearly and unmistakably agreed to arbitrate, but whether, once we have established that an agreement exists, that agreement clearly and unmistakably encompasses the plaintiff's statutory claims,” Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote on behalf of the panel.

“Armed with the correct standard, we have no trouble concluding both that the union agreed to mandatory arbitration in the CBA on behalf of its members and that the arbitration agreement at issue clearly and unmistakably encompasses Abdullayeva's FLSA and NYLL claims,” she said.

The ruling came as a win for Attending, which will now be able to avoid class certification in a case that sought a minimum of $500 million on behalf of at least 100 potential class members when it was filed in October 2017. Total exposure, however, could have extended into the billions of dollars.

An attorney for the company said Tuesday that she and her client “appreciate the court's well-reasoned decision,” but declined to comment further.

Steven L. Wittels, who represented the plaintiff, said his team was “very disappointed” with the outcome.

“The decision follows the U.S. Supreme Court's lead in shutting the courthouse doors for an ever increasing list of claims and is yet another blow to workers everywhere who seek to use the courts and class actions to protect their rights,” Wittels said in a statement.

Attending was represented by Lisa M. Griffith, Ira D. Wincott and Daniel Gomez-Sanchez of Littler Mendelson in Melville.

Abdullayeva was represented by Wittels and Tiasha Palikovic of Wittels Law in Armonk.

The case was captioned Abdullayeva v. Attending Homecare Services.