Legal News

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 term reinforced a decisive trend in labor and employment law: textualism is increasingly outcome-determinative, according to a recent analysis published by the American Bar Association’s Journal of Labor & Employment Law. The article reviews multiple employment-related decisions in which the Court adhered closely to statutory text, rejecting policy-based or agency-driven interpretations.

As the ABA notes, several of the Court’s rulings produced employee-friendly outcomes, particularly in cases involving whistleblower protections and anti-discrimination statutes, where the Court declined to impose heightened pleading or causation standards not found in the statutory language. In other areas, including arbitration and labor-relations doctrine, the Court’s textualist approach similarly narrowed judicial discretion and reshaped long-standing assumptions.

The term also included a landmark administrative-law decision overturning Chevron deference, a development the ABA describes as having significant downstream consequences for labor and employment enforcement. With courts now less inclined to defer to agency interpretations, statutory text—and how employers operationalize it—will play a central role in future disputes.

For employers, these decisions carry concrete legal risk: employment policies and handbooks will be judged more strictly against statutory language; agency guidance may offer less protection than in prior years; and litigation outcomes may turn on technical drafting choices rather than equitable considerations. Internal compliance frameworks that once relied on regulatory gloss may now require reassessment.

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Outside Legal Counsel LLP advises employers on aligning workplace policies with evolving Supreme Court precedent, mitigating litigation risk in a post-Chevron environment, and navigating statutory compliance in an increasingly textualist judicial landscape. Contact us today.

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