Protecting Older Americans Act of 2025

This section would give the Act the short title 'Protecting Older Americans Act of 2025.'

This section would add a new chapter 5 to title 9 of the United States Code, covering arbitration of age discrimination disputes. New section 501 defines an 'age discrimination dispute' as a dispute over conduct alleged to be age discrimination, in any form, including disparate treatment, disparate impact, harassment, or retaliation, against a person who is at least 40 years old, where that discrimination is prohibited under applicable federal, tribal, or state law, including local law. It also states that the terms 'predispute arbitration agreement' and 'predispute joint-action waiver' carry the same meanings already given to those terms elsewhere in title 9. New section 502 states that, despite any other provision of title 9, the person alleging conduct that is an age discrimination dispute, or the named representative in a class action or collective action alleging such conduct, can choose not to arbitrate. If that person makes that choice, no predispute arbitration agreement and no predispute joint-action waiver would be valid or enforceable for a case filed under federal, tribal, or state law that relates to the age discrimination dispute. It also states that whether this chapter applies to a dispute is to be decided under federal law, and that a court, not an arbitrator, decides both whether the chapter applies to an arbitration agreement and whether that agreement is valid and enforceable. A court makes that decision regardless of whether the party resisting arbitration challenges the arbitration clause on its own or together with other parts of the contract, and regardless of whether the agreement tries to hand that decision to an arbitrator instead. The section also adds cross-references to this new chapter 5 in sections 2, 208, and 307 of title 9, and adds chapter 5 to title 9's table of chapters.

This section would apply the Act, and the amendments it makes, to any dispute or claim that arises or accrues on or after the date the Act is enacted.