Cato: No, Janus Is Not A Death Knell for Unions

In her dissent on behalf of the four liberals in today’s Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, Justice Elena Kagan outlined the so-called free-rider problem that has been said to justify requiring public employees to pay union fees [citation to 1991 paper omitted]:

Employees (including those who love the union) realize that they can get the same benefits even if they let their memberships expire. And as more and more stop paying dues, those left must take up the financial slack (and anyway, begin to feel like suckers)—so they too quit the union. And when the vicious cycle finally ends, chances are that the union will lack the resources to effectively perform the responsibilities of an exclusive representative—or, in the worst case, to perform them at all. The result is to frustrate the interests of every government entity that thinks a strong exclusive-representation scheme will promote stable labor relations.

The free-rider argument is a weak one on its own terms, even if you leave aside Justice Samuel Alito’s observation for the majority that free-rider economic arguments are ordinarily not expected to override First Amendment concerns. To begin with, unions not only still exist in the U.S. states (a majority) that have enacted “right to work” laws curbing agency fees, but sometimes wield much political clout. Janus does not spell a death knell for public unions that provide their members with value.

Moreover, as Cato scholars Trevor Burrus and Reilly Stephens have pointed out, European unions have developed along somewhat different institutional lines: they rely less on models of exclusive bargaining representation and more on collective social representation and solidarity (often linked to direct involvement in provision of fringe benefits and other valued services).  Far from being weakened by their departure from the “American” model of exclusive collective representation, they seem to be in many ways more formidable than are American unions.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/no-janus-not-death-knell-unions

Cato: New Bill Would Ban Internet Bots (and Speech)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced the Bot Disclosure and Accountability Act, a proposal to regulate social media bots in a roundabout fashion. The bill has several shortcomings.

Automation of social media use exists on a continuum, from simple software that allows users to schedule posts throughout the day, to programs that scrape and share information about concert ticket availability, or automatically respond to climate change skeptics. Bots may provide useful services, or flood popular topics with nonsense statements in an effort to derail debate. They often behave differently across different social media platforms; Reddit bots serve different functions than Twitter bots. 

What level of automation renders a social media account a bot? Sen. Feinstein isn’t sure, so she’s relinquishing that responsibility to the Federal Trade Commission:

The term ‘‘automated software program or process intended to impersonate or replicate human activity online’’ has the meaning given the term by the [Federal Trade] Commission

If Congress wants to attempt to regulate Americans’ use of social media management software, they should do so themselves. Instead, they would hand the hard and controversial work of defining a bot to the FTC, dodging democratic accountability in the process. Moreover, the bill demands that the FTC define bots “broadly enough so that the definition is not limited to current technology”, virtually guaranteeing initial overbreadth.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/new-bill-would-ban-internet-bots-speech

Cato: A First Amendment Win in a Case That Was NOT about Abortion

In a decision that many First Amendment faithful might find too good to be true, in NIFLA v. Becerra, the Court delivered a solid victory for freedom of speech and against government agents who would force people to speak state-approved messages. Despite the hype to the contrary – and activists from both sides on the courthouse steps – this was NOT an abortion case.  The Court was able to separate the First Amendment principles at stake from that fraught subject.

Reiterating its previous rulings on similar provisions controlling speech based on its content, the Court held that any content-based speech regulation – in this case a California law that compels delivery of particular scripts regarding the availability of abortion services (but that could equally be applied to speech about adoption and prenatal services) – is presumptively unconstitutional. To regulate the content of speech, the government must show that it has the most important of reasons for regulating the speech in question, and that it is only prohibiting or mandating speech to the extent necessary to achieve that highly important and specific purpose. California failed to show that “compelling” interest, namely why it was necessary to single out pro-life pregnancy centers and conscript them into delivering the state’s message about low-cost abortion services.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/first-amendment-win-case-was-not-about-abortion

Cato: Supreme Court Ruling on Travel Ban Should Concern All Legal Immigrants

The Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s travel ban in a 5-4 decision. The travel ban undermines a core principle of the U.S. immigration system since 1965: that the law will not discriminate against immigrants based on nationality or place of birth. The president has rewritten our immigration laws as he sees fit based on the thinnest national security pretext, setting a dangerous precedent for the future.

The ban entirely lacks any reasonable basis in the facts. Nationals of the targeted countries have not carried out any deadly terrorist attacks in the United States, and they are also much less likely to commit other crimes in the United States. Nor are their governments less able or willing than others to share information or adopt certain identity management protocols.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/supreme-court-ruling-travel-ban-should-concern-all-legal-immigrants

Cato: Travel Ban 3.0 Correctly Upheld Because Congress and Courts Give Wide Deference to President on National Security

It’s no surprise that the Supreme Court allowed Travel Ban 3.0 to remain in place, particularly given that the justices allowed Ban 2.0 to go into effect a year ago and this one last fall. This third version specifically carves out those with green cards, provides for waivers for those with special cases (family, medical emergencies, business ties, etc.), and also was tailored based on national-security considerations, to which the Court typically defers. One can disagree, as I do, with some of the policy judgments inherent in this executive action, but as a matter of law, the president – any president – gets a wide berth here.

The Court considered the president’s statements regarding this policy but ultimately had to apply a deferential standard; given the legitimate justifications explicitly set out in the “proclamation” announcing Travel Ban 3.0, the Court could not preference campaign rhetoric and tweets over legal documents in this context. “While we of course ‘do not defer to the Government’s reading of the First Amendment,’” Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion says, citing Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010), “the Executive’s evaluation of the underlying facts is entitled to appropriate weight, particularly in the context of litigation involving ‘sensitive and weighty interests of national security and foreign affairs.’”

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/travel-ban-30-correctly-upheld-because-congress-courts-give-wide-deference-president-national

Cato: Fighting Words and Free Speech

On a Saturday afternoon in Rochester, New Hampshire, Jehovah’s Witness Walter Chaplinsky addressed the City Marshal as “a God damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist.” He was convicted of violating a state law that prohibited offensive words in public. The United States Supreme Court upheld the conviction and identified certain categories of speech that could be constitutionally restricted, including a class of speech called “fighting words.”

Writing for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy stated that “fighting words” are “no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived by them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” In Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship, Strossen explains the ‘fighting words’ doctrine that grew from Chaplinsky:

“Fighting words” constitute a type of punishable incitement: when speakers intentionally incite imminent violence against themselves (in contrast with third parties), which is likely to happen immediately. In the fighting words situation the speaker hurls insulting language directly at another person, intending to instigate that person’s imminent violent reaction against the speaker himself/herself, and that violence is likely to occur immediately (64).

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/fighting-words-free-speech

Cato: Bumping the Constitution to Ban Bump Stocks

For years, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has maintained that “bump stocks”—devices that allow a firearm to reciprocate slightly and assist in “bump firing”—are not “machineguns.” From 2007 to 2017, spanning multiple administrations (including the current one), the ATF issued 10 different opinion letters confirming that the devices were not “machineguns” or “machine gun conversions,” and thus did not fall under the purview of the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968, two federal laws which heavily regulate machine gun ownership.

Under federal law, a “machinegun” is a device “which shoots … automatically more than one shot … by a single function of the trigger.” With language so clear, the provision was never considered ambiguous by a reviewing court over 80 years of decisions—and the ATF’s interpretation remained consistent. It is for this reason that bump stocks, and crank-operated “Gatling guns,” while having a high rate of fire, have never been considered “machineguns.” (Yes, virtually anyone can own a Gatling gun under federal law.) What could change the state of such settled law, then? Political expediency.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/bumping-constitution-ban-bump-stocks

Cato: High Court Reads and Applies Constitution

The Supreme Court issued a major separation-of-powers decision this morning, which may have more long-term ripple effects than the internet sales-tax case. In Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Court rule 6.5-2.5 – I’ll explain shortly – that SEC administrative law judges are “officers of the United States” and thus must be appointed by the president or the “department head,” in this case the SEC itself (rather than being selected by commission staff). This is important because it makes ALJs, who make decisions with significant monetary and regulatory impact, more accountable to the political process – instead of being mere creatures of the bureaucratic blob.

It’s gratifying that the Supreme Court takes constitutional structure seriously, at least with respect to the president’s appointment of inferior officers. Justice Elena Kagan’s majority opinion powerfully and concisely explains what was clear all along: ALJs are powerful officers with significant discretionary powers rather than mere clerks. That power and discretion is what sets officers apart from mere employees, as the Supreme Court explained in Freytag v. Commissioner (1991). Accordingly, ALJs should indeed be part of the executive branch’s chain of command instead of a nebulous part of the “fourth branch” administrative agencies. This ruling will increase accountability for these executive officers even as they perform quasi-judicial tasks and often represent the last real chance for those caught in the SEC’s investigatory clutches to defend themselves.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/high-court-reads-applies-constitution

Cato: South Dakota v. Wayfair: A Taxing Decision

Today, the Supreme Court handed the states a victory in their battle to collect taxes on online sales, but, in doing so, dealt a heavy loss to the national market, small businesses, and the people at large. South Dakota v. Wayfair’s focus was on whether to overturn Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which held that states could not impose tax collection obligations on businesses with no physical presence in the state. In a bizarrely split 5-4 decision–with Justice Kennedy writing the majority joined by Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito, and Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts writing the dissent joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan–the Court held that states can charge sales taxes on completely out-of-state businesses.

As the dissent rightly points out, the majority decided Wayfair with “an inexplicable sense of urgency,” asserting that “the passage of time is only increasing the need to take the extraordinary step of overruling” longstanding precedent. While wrongly decided cases need to be dealt with, Quill was not one of those decisions. As the chief justice correctly observes in his dissent: “E-commerce has grown into a significant and vibrant part of our national economy against the backdrop of established rules, including the physical-presence rule. Any alteration to those rules with the potential to disrupt the development of such a critical segment of the economy should be undertaken by Congress.” In fact, amicus briefs for various senators and members of Congress were submitted to the Court highlighting the ongoing efforts to fix the e-commerce sales-tax system, and three bills are currently pending. “By suddenly changing the ground rules,” the chief justice warns, “the Court may have waylaid Congress’s consideration of the issue. Armed with today’s decision, state officials can be expected to redirect their attention from working with Congress on a national solution, to securing new tax revenue from remote retailers.”

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/south-dakota-v-wayfair-taxing-decision

Cato: U.S. Withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council: Right Decision, Bad Optics

Confirming rumors that had been circulating for weeks, the Trump administration announced that the United States will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council. That body consists of 47 member states with rotating, staggered 3-year terms. It is tasked with protecting human rights as well as highlighting and condemning regimes that violate those rights. The Council has been controversial since its inception, especially among American conservatives. George W. Bush’s administration declined to make the United States a member when the UN General Assembly established the Council in 2006. President Obama reversed that decision in 2009.   

In announcing the U.S. withdrawal, Ambassador Nikki Haley blasted the organization as a “cesspool of political bias.” Vice President Mike Pence was equally caustic, stating that the United States was taking a stand “against some of the world’s worst human rights violators by withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council. By elevating and protecting human rights violators and engaging in smear campaigns against democratic nations, the UNHRC makes a mockery of itself, its members, and the mission it was founded on. For years, the UNHRC has engaged in ever more virulent anti-American and anti-Israel invective and the days of U.S. participation are over.”

The decision has far more symbolic than substantive importance. For all of the publicity surrounding the UNHRC’s periodic condemnations of specific regimes, the body has no enforcement powers. Critics of Washington’s decision, though, see repudiating the UNHRC as another in a series of Trump administration moves to relinquish America’s “global leadership role” and retreat into an “America alone” foreign policy. They cite earlier examples such as Washington’s rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the withdrawal from the Paris agreement on climate change, and efforts to undermine the Iran nuclear agreement.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/s-withdrawal-un-human-rights-council-right-decision-bad-optics

Cato: Openings in the Front in the Campaign Against Qualified Immunity

I’ve blogged several times now about Cato’s ongoing campaign to challenge the doctrine of qualified immunity. This judge-made doctrine – invented out of whole cloth, at odds with the text of Section 1983, and unsupported by the common-law history against which that statute was passed – shields public officials from liability for unlawful misconduct, unless the plaintiff can show that the misconduct violated “clearly established law.” This standard is incredibly difficult for civil rights plaintiffs to overcome, because courts generally require not just a clear legal rule, but a prior case on the books with functionally identical facts. Not only does this doctrine deny relief to victims whose rights have been violated, but at a structural level, it also erodes accountability for government agents (especially law enforcement).

I’m thrilled to report, however, that in the last 36 hours, we’ve had three promising developments in this front:

First, in a Section 1983 case in the Eastern District of New York, Judge Jack Weinstein denied qualified immunity to police officers alleged to have beaten up a man after he refused to allow them to enter his home without a warrant. His comprehensive opinion not only denied immunity in this case, but also discussed recent criticisms of the doctrine, both on legal and policy grounds, and suggested that the law “must return to a state where some effective remedy is available for serious infringement of constitutional rights.” Judge Weinstein thus joins other lower court judges, like Lynn Adelman of the Eastern District of Wisconsin and Jon O. Newman of the Second Circuit, who have criticized the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity jurisprudence. Lower court judges are, of course, obliged to follow Supreme Court precedent with direct application, but this is exactly the kind of criticism and commentary that can help explain to the Court why that precedent should be reconsidered.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/openings-front-campaign-against-qualified-immunity

Cato: Legislative Presumption and Judicial Deference Trump the Contracts Clause

If you designate a beneficiary on a life insurance policy, should you expect your intent to be honored upon your death? You may not be able to if you live in Minnesota or more than half of the nation’s other states. So said the Supreme Court today—despite the plain language of Constitution’s Contracts Clause, which categorically prohibits states from passing “any … Law impairing the Obligations of Contracts.” The case was Sveen v. Melin. The decision was 8-1, Justice Elena Kagan writing for the Court. The dissent by Justice Neil Gorsuch goes to the heart of the matter. (For an overview of the Contracts Clause, see chapter 3 in Bob Levy and Chip Mellor’s The Dirty Dozen.)

The decision’s syllabus nicely summaries the facts:

Mark Sveen and respondent Kaye Melin were married in 1997. The next year, Sveen purchased a life insurance policy, naming Melin as the primary beneficiary and designating his two children from a prior marriage, petitioners Ashley and Antone Sveen, as contingent beneficiaries. The Sveen-Melin marriage ended in 2007, but the divorce decree made no mention of the insurance policy and Sveen took no action to revise his beneficiary designations. After Sveen passed away in 2011, Melin and the Sveen children made competing claims to the insurance proceeds. The Sveens argued that under Minnesota’s revocation-on-divorce law, their father’s divorce canceled Melin’s beneficiary designation, leaving them as the rightful recipients. Melin claimed that because the law did not exist when the policy was purchased and she was named as the primary beneficiary, applying the later-enacted law to the policy violates the Constitution’s Contracts Clause. The District Court awarded the insurance money to the Sveens, but the Eighth Circuit reversed, holding that the retroactive application of Minnesota’s law violates the Contracts Clause.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/legislative-presumption-judicial-deference-trump-contracts-clause

Cato: “Hate Speech” Laws Undermine Free Speech and Equality

Having no specific legal definition, “hate speech” is a vague term. It is generally understood to mean speech that expresses hateful or bigoted views about certain groups that historically have been subject to discrimination. Concerned by the impact of hate speech on vulnerable populations, social justice advocates see sense in restricting this type of speech.

However, these types of laws often fall hardest on the very people they are intended to protect. Nadine Strossen explores this idea in her new book, Hate Speech: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship. (Hereafter all page citations are to this book).

Strossen draws attention to the fact that prohibitions of “hate speech” are characterized by unavoidable vagueness and overbreadth.  A law is “unduly vague” (and unconstitutional) when people “of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning.” “Hate speech” laws are inherently subjective and ambiguous in their language, with the use of words like “insulting,” “abusive,” and “outrageous.” Specific to laws about speech, vagueness “inevitably deters people from engaging in constitutionally protected speech” (69).

One person’s “hate speech” is another’s anti-“hate speech.” Strossen cites many examples in which certain religious views are assailed as “hate speech” against LGBT individuals, while critiques of those religious views are attacked as anti-religious “hate speech.”

This issue is also prevalent on campus, exemplified by a situation at Harvard University in which a group of students hung a confederate flag from their dorm room. In response, other students hung swastikas from their windows.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/hate-speech-laws-undermine-free-speech-equality

Cato: Masterpiece Cakeshop Ruling Tastes Good, But Is Empty Calories

Today’s exceedingly narrow decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop kicks all the big questions down the road. While it’s gratifying that, by a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court reversed Colorado’s persecution of Jack Phillips – the baker who was happy to serve gay people but would not make a cake for a same-sex wedding – it did so only on the basis that the state commission charged with enforcing antidiscrimination law itself displayed anti-religious animus. That’s an unusual circumstance that’s not necessarily in play in the other wedding-vendor cases that periodically arise. Indeed, the petition of the Washington florist, Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington, is currently pending before the Court; with today’s narrow ruling, the justices can’t simply send that case back to the state supreme court for reevaluation – because, again, today’s rule of decision is case-specific rather than some clarifying First Amendment principle.

Although most of the briefing and commentary surrounding Masterpiece (mine included) focused on the free-speech aspect – Phillips’s main argument was that he was being forced to convey a message he didn’t agree with – the way this ruling ultimately came down wasn’t unexpected given the way that argument went. Indeed, Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom everybody assumed (correctly) was the key to this case, showed flashes of anger at the attitudes shown by certain members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. And so, Kennedy concludes in his short opinion (18 pages, most of which is basic recitation of factual and procedural background) that “the Commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case violated the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or religious viewpoint.”

That holding is joined not just by the so-called conservative justices (John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch), but two of the so-called liberals (Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan). The other two justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor) disagreed, finding the commissioners’ anti-religious statements irrelevant to the ultimate application of the law.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/masterpiece-cakeshop-ruling-tastes-good-empty-calories

Cato: Challenging Qualified Immunity for Prison Officials Who Kept a Man in Solitary for No Reason

Our primary federal civil rights statute, colloquially called “Section 1983,” says that any state actor who violates someone’s constitutional rights may be sued in federal court. This remedy is crucial not just to secure relief for individuals whose rights are violated, but also to ensure accountability for government agents. Yet the Supreme Court has crippled the functioning of this statute through the judge-made doctrine of “qualified immunity.” This doctrine — at odds with both the text of the statute and the common law principles against which it was passed — immunizes public officials who commit illegal misconduct, unless they violated “clearly established law.” That standard is incredibly difficult for civil rights plaintiffs to overcome, because courts generally require not just a clear legal rule, but a prior case on the books with functionally identical facts.

In Allah v. Milling, 876 F.3d 48 (2d Cir. 2017), the Second Circuit used qualified immunity to shield prison officials who kept an inmate, named Almighty Supreme Born Allah, in dungeon-like, solitary confinement conditions for seven months — all because Mr. Allah had once asked a question about why prison inmates were being denied access to commissary. For this “offense,” Mr. Allah was placed in “Administration Segregation” for over a year, most of which he spent in solitary confinement. He spent 23 hours a day alone in his cell, was handcuffed and shackled anytime he was removed from his cell, and forced to shower in leg irons and wet underwear. To make matters worse, Mr. Allah was, at this time, merely a pretrial detainee who had yet to be convicted of a crime.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/challenging-qualified-immunity-prison-officials-who-kept-man-solitary-no-reason

Cato: Mandatory E-Verify will Increase Identity Theft

Nancy Berryhill, an Acting Commissioner of Social Security, recently testified in front of the House Subcommittee on Social Security on the widespread use of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) beyond their intended function.  Most of her testimony concerned the history of SSNs, past security procedures, and proposed future ones.  In a bizarre sentence that contradicts much of the rest of her testimony, Berryhill stated that, “Mandatory use of E-Verify by employers would help reduce the incidence of fraudulent use of SSNs.”  That is exactly backward.  Mandatory E-Verify will greatly expand the fraudulent use of SSNs.

E-Verify is an electronic employment eligibility verification system run by the federal government that is supposed to check the identity information of new hires against government databases to verify that they are legally eligible to work.  Congress created E-Verify to deny employment to illegal immigrants and reduce the incentive for them to come and remain in the United States.  E-Verify is not yet mandated nationwide but several states have mandated its use, to various degrees, and many large employers currently use it.

E-Verify builds on the current rudimentary employment verification known as the I-9 form that every new employee must fill out thanks to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).  An E-Verify mandate would add another layer on top of the I-9 whereby employers, after collecting I-9 forms, would enter the information on them into a government website.  The E-Verify system then compares that I-9 information with information held in the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases.  The employee is work authorized if the databases decide that the information is valid.  A flag raised by either database returns a “tentative non-confirmation,” requiring the employee and employer to sort out whatever error has been flagged.  If the employee and employer cannot sort out the errors then the employer must terminate the new employee through a “final non-confirmation.”  The I-9 form and E-Verify have serious problems, including the encouragement of rampant identity theft, but those problems would only grow with an E-Verify mandate.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/mandatory-e-verify-will-increase-identity-theft

Cato: Epic Systems v. Lewis: It’s OK To Calm Down About Arbitration

Yesterday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding agreements to individually arbitrate wage-and-hour claims was neither surprising nor novel as a legal matter. Nor – notwithstanding the variously breathless, furious, and apocalyptic reactions it has drawn from stage Left – is it objectionable as a matter of policy, or “anti-worker.” It is pro-liberty, pro-contract, and pro-respect for private ordering.

On a practical level, the decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis and two companion cases leaves in place (rather than changing) a by now familiar business practice. Not until 2012 did the National Labor Relations Board embrace the notion that the National Labor Relations Act bans arbitration agreements requiring individual rather than class-action pursuit of wage claims, and that Obama-era position has not been able to maintain the assent even of the full federal government (the current Department of Justice disagrees, and filed against the agency’s position).

At the level of legal precedent, this is by one count the seventh major Court decision since 1983 confirming (in each case over liberal dissents) that the Arbitration Act’s broad federal policy favoring arbitration agreements is compatible with, rather than ousted by, some other federal law. In fact, in one of those decisions, 1991’s Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., the Court had already implied (in interpreting a parallel statutory scheme) that the federal statute directly governing wage and hour suits, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), does not ban this kind of arbitration agreement.  That foray having yielded nought, advocates came back with a “bank shot” (Justice Neil Gorsuch’s phrase) theory that even if the FLSA doesn’t forestall individualized arbitration of FLSA claims, the National Labor Relations Act does, under a miscellaneous clause that extends federal legal protection to some “concerted” activity by employees that does not consist of union action. But although some labor movement advocates have hoped to use this catchall language as the future engine by which the NLRB would gain power to impose major new regulatory requirements at non-union workplaces – all sorts of on- and off-job interactions between colleagues might be interpreted as concerted activity if you squint at them the right way – it was always doubtful that the current Court would go along with a very broad reading on that.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/apocalypse-not-arbitration-survives-epic-systems-v-lewis