Arbitration

This decision affirms denial of the employer-defendant's motion to compel arbitration under an agreement that delegated arbitrability questions to the arbitrator.  The arbitration agreement and its delegation clause were both unconscionable for the same reasons.  Procedurally, the agreement was presented as an adhesion contract that employees had to sign to retain employment.  Also the agreement was nine pages of 10… Read More

Following Esparza v. KS Industries, L.P. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 1228, this decision holds that an employee cannot be compelled under a predispute arbitration clause to arbitrate a PAGA claim.  The FAA does not preempt this rule.  The employer failed to show that the employee who filed the suit was employed under a collective bargaining agreement so the LMRA  301 did… Read More

The district court correctly denied plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction before compelling arbitration of the plaintiff's wage-and-hour misclassification claims.  Plaintiff had sought an injunction requiring Uber to reclassify all its drivers as employees rather than independent contractors.  That injunction would have changed, not preserved, the status quo pending arbitration.  Also, there was no urgent need for an injunction before… Read More

The district court correctly compelled arbitration in this wage-and-hour misclassification suit by a Massachusetts Uber driver.  Even assuming Massachusetts would follow McGill v. Citibank, N.A. (2017) 2 Cal.5th 945, plaintiff did not seek a public injunction with McGill's meaning.  Instead, plaintiff sought only an injunction that would benefit himself and other Uber drivers, but not the general public, by requiring… Read More

The trial court correctly compelled arbitration of this Massachusetts Uber driver's wage and hour class action, based on alleged misclassification of Uber drivers as independent contractors.  For purposes of determining whether the plaintiff was a worker in interstate commerce, exempt from the FAA under 9 USC 2, the court properly considered the class of all Uber drivers nationwide, not just… Read More

A party seeking to vacate an arbitration award must file a petition to vacate or a response (to a petition to confirm) seeking vacation of the award within the shorter of 10 days after service of the petition to confirm or 100 days after service of the arbitration award.  (CCP 1288.2, 1290.6.)  Here, even though defendant filed a response to… Read More

The trial court properly found MoneyGram's arbitration clause unconscionable and denied its motion to compel arbitration.  The clause was procedurally unconscionable as it appeared in nearly illegible 6 pt type on the back of a money transfer order form.  It was also an adhesion contract.  To prove procedural unconscionability, plaintiff didn't have to show a lack of alternatives in the… Read More

Like several other decisions, this one concludes that later U.S. Supreme Court opinions have not overruled or cast doubt on Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348.  It remains true that an employer cannot compel an employee to arbitrate a PAGA claim and that the FAA does not preempt that rule. Read More

Following Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela (2019) 139 S.Ct. 1407, this decision holds that at least when its application would change a fundamental attribute of arbitration, the construction against drafter rule is preempted by the FAA.  So, in this case, an ambiguity introduced by the Spanish translation's mistaken reference to nonbinding, instead of binding, arbitration could not be resolved against… Read More

The trial court properly denied defendant's motion to vacate the arbitration award on the ground of manifest disregard of the law.  The arbitrator properly reconsidered his initial award and reentered an award based on other grounds after defendant's criminal conviction for fraud was vacated for retrial.  The arbitrator properly drew negative inferences from defendant's invoking the Fifth Amendment in response… Read More

This decision states that an arbitrator may not consider an Anti-SLAPP motion to strike, but it finds that the arbitrator's error in granting such a motion was harmless.  At the second stage of the Anti-SLAPP analysis, the arbitrator had to consider the merits of the defendant's cross-complaint.  The arbitrator found that the litigation privilege (Civ. Code 47(b)) barred the cross-complaint. … Read More

Calling for en banc review of Monster Energy Co. v. City Beverages, LLC (9th Cir. 2019) 940 F.3d 1130, this decision refuses to extend Monster Energy's holding.  Disclosure is required only if the arbitrator has a non-trivial ownership interest in JAMS (or other arbitration administrator) and only if JAMS (or other) has non-trivial business dealings with the opposing party--not the… Read More

Plaintiff's subcontract with defendant, the prime contractor, incorporated by reference the 151-page prime contract between defendant and the owner.  The prime contract contained an arbitration clause.  The subcontract did not.  This decision affirms an order denying arbitration.  The incorporation of the prime contract was in a clause referring only to the subcontractor's assuming the prime contractor's obligations to the owner. … Read More

Under 9 USC 4, the district court must hold a summary jury trial if a party timely demands a jury and the district court finds, on a motion to compel arbitration, that there are disputed issues of fact as to whether the plaintiff entered into or is otherwise bound by an arbitration clause.  Here, the district court so found, but… Read More

Plaintiff hired E to sell its cyptocurrency assets for cash.  E did so using defendant's website.  The proceeds of sale were stolen from the website allegedly because defendant failed to implement elemental security measures.  This decision holds that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to compel arbitration based on its terms of service to which E… Read More

The party moving to compel arbitration bears the burden of proving that the parties entered into an arbitration agreement.  Here, plaintiff employee denied that she had electronically signed the arbitration agreement during the employment onboarding procedure that defendant implemented on taking over the acute care facility at which plaintiff worked.  One way to authenticate an electronic signature is to show… Read More

On behalf of a putative class of prescription drug buyers, plaintiff alleged that Rite Aid reported inflated "usual and customary" drug prices to the pharmacy benefits managers which transmitted the inflated figures to plaintiffs' health insurers, causing the plaintiffs to pay higher than proper deductibles for the drugs.  This decision affirms an order denying Rite Aid's motion to compel arbitration. … Read More

Following Garcia v. Pexco, LLC (2017) 11 Cal.App.5th 782 as a correct statement of California law on a non-signatory's use of equitable estoppel to compel arbitration against a signatory plaintiff, this decision affirms an order compelling arbitration of the plaintiff's wage and hour claims against defendant hospital.  Plaintiff was directly hired by a staffing agency that paid her wages and… Read More

Under 11580.2(f), insured and insurer must arbitrate any dispute about whether the insured is entitled to recover damages from an uninsured motorist and the amount of those damages.  While the insured is not required to arbitrate a bad faith claim arising from the same accident, the fact that the insured has alleged such a claim is not grounds for avoiding… Read More

Following EEOC v. Waffle House Inc. (2002) 122 S.Ct. 754, this decision holds that the Secretary of Labor cannot be compelled to arbitrate his enforcement action under the Fair :Labor Standards Act even if the employees had agreed to arbitrate their claims against their employer.  The FLSA expressly allows the Secretary to sue to obtain monetary relief for aggrieved employees… Read More