News Release

NCD #02-346
January 16, 2002
Contact: Mark S. Quigley
202-272-2004
202-272-2074 TTY
mquigley@ncd.gov

National Council on Disability Commends EEOC for Successfully Challenging Binding Aribtration

WASHINGTON--The National Council on Disability (NCD) commends the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for successfully challenging binding arbitration in workplace disputes in the Supreme Court case Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Waffle House, Inc. (No. 99-1823).

In a 6-3 decision on January 15, the Court ruled that EEOC may initiate its own lawsuits on behalf of workers with and without disabilities who have agreed to settle work-related claims through binding arbitration. This decision limits an employer's ability to keep disputes out of the courts and partially reverses last year's ruling in which the Court said that an employee's signature on an employment contract containing an arbitration agreement waives the employee's right to go to court on their own behalf.

According to NCD chairperson Marca Bristo, "The Americans with Disabilities Act's comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination based on disability raises the expectation that the full force of the federal law will come down on anyone who continues to subject people with disabilities to discrimination by segregating them, by excluding them, or by denying them equally effective and meaningful opportunity to benefit from all aspects of life in America."

"In its 2000 report Promises to Keep: A Decade of Federal Enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act, NCD recommended that EEOC should strengthen methods for the timely and effective enforcement of ADA. The Court's favorable decision affirms EEOC's ability to assist people with disabilities in asserting their civil rights protections in the workplace. This is indeed hopeful in light of the Court's recent slide on civil rights protections for people with disabilities," Bristo added.