Irreconcilable Deferences - The Troubled Marriage of Judicial Review Standards under the Steelworkers Trilogy and the Federal Arbitration Act

To explore the ramifications of this hybrid, labor-employment discrimination award, I ask what standards would a court apply to review an arbitrator's ruling. The Steelworker's Trilogy-three Supreme Court decisions that explain to courts how to review awards under section 301 of the Labor-Management Relations Act-pronounce deferential standards. But until now, individual employment awards have typically been reviewed under section 10 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) or state law equivalents. My research on labor awards and individual employment awards show that courts do not behave the same under these different regimes.

They enforce about seventy-two percent of labor awards, but as much as ninety-two percent of employment discrimination awards. Posing a hypothetical example from the Court's recent affirmative action decision, Ricci v. DeStefano,4 1 assess Penn Plaza's potential impact on this new method for adjudicating discrimination claims.