Also known as: carve-out · carveout · carveouts · carve out · carve outs · exceptions · exclusions
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Statutory or contractual provisions that permit employers and unions to replace the standard no-fault administrative compensation system with privately negotiated alternative dispute resolution procedures. These provisions appear in state workers' compensation statutes and are implemented through collective bargaining agreements. They allow the parties to design their own claims-handling and adjudication processes while remaining outside the public system.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Crestview Holdings and its union negotiate a collective bargaining agreement containing a carve-out. After an employee suffers a workplace injury, the parties resolve the claim through their privately selected mediator rather than the state workers' compensation board. The employee receives benefits under the negotiated schedule and waives further administrative review.
Central Dynamics and its union agree to a carve-out that channels all workplace injury disputes to a private arbitration panel. When an employee seeks Supreme Court review of an adverse award, the statute implementing the carve-out bars further federal appellate jurisdiction over that category of claims.
Cobalt Energy's union contract includes a carve-out allowing the employer to introduce evidence of an injured worker's prior safety violations in the private arbitration proceeding. The arbitrator admits the evidence under the carve-out even though the general evidentiary prohibition would otherwise apply.
Compass Logistics and its union establish a carve-out arbitration system. An employee who violated safety rules to prevent a larger accident invokes the necessity justification during the private hearing. The arbitrator applies the justification standard and reduces the penalty that the standard compensation board would have imposed.
Cecilia Cabrera's union negotiates a carve-out that prohibits lawyers from making political contributions to secure appointments as arbitrators under the private system. When a firm attempts to make such a contribution, the carve-out bars the appointment and preserves the integrity of the alternative process.
Carlos Castillo's union contract adopts a carve-out that removes certain workers' compensation appeals from the ordinary appellate pathway. Congress later enacts legislation confirming the withdrawal of Supreme Court review for that narrow class of cases while leaving other constitutional claims intact.
Carve-outs replace the public administrative adjudication process with privately designed procedures agreed upon in collective bargaining. The parties select their own neutrals and rules while still providing the no-fault benefits required by statute.
Supporting sources
Yes. State workers' compensation statutes expressly permit unions and employers to create these alternative systems through collective bargaining agreements.
Supporting sources
…arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States (except the cases in which it has original jurisdiction) with such exceptions and under such regulations as Congress shall make. The term 'appellate jurisdiction' is to be taken in its largest sense and implies the right of superintending inferior tribunals.…