Arbitration

A pre-dispute arbitration clause cannot be enforced to require arbitration of a claim based on the Private Attorney General Act, since the claim is brought on behalf of the state which is not party to the arbitration agreement.  Read More

A $30 million arbitration award is vacated as the arbitrator exceeded his powers by awarding punitive damages that the claimant first requested the day before the arbitration hearing.  Read More

District court properly denied defendant employer’s motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff workers’ wage and hour claims, since collective bargaining agreement’s arbitration clause covered only contract-related claims, not statutory claims.  Read More

It was an abuse of discretion to deny defendant employer’s motion to compel arbitration due to the low level of procedural unconscionability and the absence of substantive unconscionability.  Read More

Since California law treats silence as non-acceptance of a contract offer, a consumer did not agree to arbitrate disputes with Samsung by failing to respond to an arbitration clause that was included in a warranty and product information booklet packaged with a Galaxy cellphone which the customer received after signing a Verizon subscription agreement.  Read More

The Court of Appeals lacked jurisdiction over a non-final order denying motion to compel arbitration because the motion was brought under California’s Arbitration Act, not the Federal Arbitration Act.  Read More

The trial court correctly denied an employer's motion to compel arbitration of an employee's complaint under the Private Attorney General Act, since an individual employee's PAGA claim is not severable from the claim on behalf of the general public.  Read More

The standard Law Printing car contract, which requires the buyer to proceed to a second arbitration before a three-arbitrator panel if the first arbitration before a single arbitrator results in an award exceeding $100,000, is enforceable.  Read More

Trial court correctly refused to compel arbitration of this suit which the plaintiff employee brought solely under PAGA (the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004), since even if a PAGA claim may be brought on an individual basis, it is still a claim by the state, not by the private attorney general, and so cannot be governed by a private… Read More

The three-month deadline for filing a motion to vacate an arbitration award may be tolled by delayed discovery of an arbitrator’s deliberate and material deception as to his credentials.  Read More

An order compelling arbitration of individual wage and hour claims, dismissing class claims, and staying PAGA claims—all arising from the same factual allegations—is not a death knell order and so is not immediately appealable, since other employees may use a judgment on those claims as collateral estoppel to bring their own suits, and the continued existence of the PAGA claims… Read More

An arbitration clause excepting “any class or representative suit” from arbitration excludes from arbitration individual, as well as group, claims brought under the Private Attorney General Act (“PAGA”; Labor Code 2698 et seq).  Read More

Even though the parties’ arbitrators considered written submissions from both parties in resolving a post-arbitration dispute, they allowed only one side to present oral evidence, and that was sufficiently prejudicial to require the court to vacate the arbitration award.  Read More

Since a ride-sharing company’s arbitration arbitration agreements with its drives delegated all questions of arbitrability to the arbitrator, the district court erred in holding the clauses were unconscionable and unenforceable, except as to the waiver of claims under California's Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), but that unenforceable provision was severable.  Read More

A mobile home park’s arbitration provision was unconscionable and unenforceable as it was given to Spanish-speaking residents in an English-only adhesion contract and required residents to advance half the cost of a three-person JAMS arbitration while also restricting the remedies arbitrators could award and imposing a one-year limit on bringing claims.  Read More

An arbitration clause calling for the losing party to pay arbitration costs and attorney fees of the prevailing party was not substantively unconscionable, nor was the forum selection clause.  Read More

An arbitration clause in an employee handbook given new employees was unenforceable because the employee was not required to (and didn’t) agree to its terms, but only acknowledged that she had received the handbook.  Read More

An arbitration clause in an employment contract which requires individual arbitration of the plaintiff's claims violates sections 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, which guarantee a worker's right to engage in concerted activities with respect to working conditions, including administrative or judicial proceedings.  Read More

An order compelling arbitration of an employee’s individual claims, dismissing his class claims, and staying his PAGA claims is not appealable even under the “death knell” doctrine since the PAGA claims survive and provide adequate incentive to prosecute the suit.  Read More

A district court scheduling order was not an appealable order since it did not finally decide the dispositive issue of whether to compel arbitration.  Read More