Crowning the New King: The Statutory Arbitrator and the Demise of Judicial Review

Judicial review of arbitration awards is highly deferential-but when does it become rubber stamping? Using original data, I find that federal courts vacated only 4.3 percent of 162 disputed arbitration awards. A sub-sample of forty-four employment discrimination arbitration awards under Title VII produced similar results. By comparison, federal Courts of Appeals in 2006 reversed 12.9 percent of 5,917 rulings made by civil court judges on the merits of legal claims.