A 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that says it's a violation of the National Labor Relations Act to require workers to pursue wage-and-hour claims through individual arbitration rather than class action litigation is in conflict with several other appellate court rulings.

In fact, observers point out that just days after the May 26 ruling by the 7th Circuit in Chicago in Jacob Lewis v. Epic Systems Corp.,the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis took the opposite position in another case.

Experts say the 8th Circuit ruling follows similar ones by other appellate courts, including the 2nd, 5th and 9th Circuits, which makes a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the issue likely.

The 7th Circuit ruling states that on April 2, 2014, Verona, Wisconsin-based Epic Systems Corp., a health care software company, sent an email to some employees containing an arbitration agreement mandating that wage-and-hour claims could be brought only through individual arbitration and that employees waived the right to participate in “any class, collective or representative proceeding.”

“Epic gave employees no option to decide if they wanted to keep their jobs,” said the ruling.

One employee, technical writer Jacob Lewis, signed the agreement but later had a dispute with Epic and sued the company in U.S. District Court in Madison, Wisconsin, charging the company had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by misclassifying him and fellow workers and depriving them of overtime pay.

When Epic moved to dismiss Mr. Lewis' claim and compel individual arbitration, Mr. Lewis responded that the arbitration clause violated the NLRA because it interfered with employees' right to engage in concerted activities and was therefore unenforceable. The District Court agreed and denied Epic's motion, and Epic appealed.

A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court ruling. The NLRA gives employees the right to engage in concerted activity, states the ruling. “Straining to read the term through our most Epic-tinged glasses, 'concerted activity' might at the most, be read as ambiguous as applied to collective lawsuits,” says the ruling.

But even if the NLRA were ambiguous, the National Labor Relations Board has interpreted it “to prohibit employers from making agreements with individual employees barring access to class or collective remedies,” says the ruling.

Epic's arbitration provision impinges on rights provided by the NLRA, the 7th Circuit ruling states. “We are aware that the circuits have some differences of opinion in this area, although these differences do not affect our analysis here,” says the ruling.

The ruling also states it disagrees with Epic's contention that the Federal Arbitration Act overrules labor doctrines. “Epic must overcome a heavy presumption to show that the FAA clashes with the NLRA,” says the ruling. It “has not carried that burden, because there is no conflict between the NLRA and the FAA.”

In the most recent ruling that disagrees with the 7th Circuit, the 8th Circuit overturned a NLRB ruling in its June 2 decision in Cellular Sales of Missouri L.L.C. v. National Labor Relations Board.

The case was filed by John Bauer, formerly an independent contractor for Cellular, whose corporate headquarters are in Knoxville, Tennessee. After the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, ruled in Cellular's favor, Mr. Bauer began an arbitration proceeding and the case was settled.

The 8th Circuit concluded that Cellular Sales had not violated the NLRA by “requiring its employees to enter into an arbitration agreement that included a class or collective actions in all forums to resolve employment-related disputes,” said the ruling.

Experts say the issue may ultimately be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 7th Circuit ruling is an “outlier,” said Pablo Orozco, an associate with Nilan Johnson Lewis P.A. in Minneapolis. “It goes against the conclusions that have been drawn by numerous other circuits,” he said.

Andrew Volin, a member of law firm Sherman & Howard L.L.C. in Denver, said as it stands, the ruling means there is a different law within the 7th Circuit than in other circuits. This “makes it much more difficult for national companies to have uniform employment policies” and will create confusion, Mr. Volin said.