Case Contains Rich Discussion Of Arbitration, PAGA, Federal Preemption, And Divergence Of State And Federal Law. Plaintiffs sued their former employer, alleging wage and hour violations and seeking civil penalties under California's Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA). Employer successfully petitioned to arbitrate, with one exception: the trial court held that under Iskanian v. […]
The Code Of Civil Procedure 1281.4 Stay Is Mandatory. Top Kick Productions, Inc., Chuck Norris's production company, sued CBS Broadcasting Inc. over allegations of what might be characterized as Hollywood Accounting. CBS moved to compel arbitration, and to stay the litigation pursuant to CCP 1281.4, while Top Kick had a pending motion to […]
Either Defendants Authorized Their Attorney To Agree To Binding Arbitration Or They Ratified The Agreement. Defendants and Plaintiffs arbitrated their dispute, the arbitrator's award was in favor of Plaintiffs, and Defendants appealed the judgment confirming the award. Dean v. Amado, A147660 (1/3 2/20/19) (Jenkins, Siggins, Pollak) (not for publication). Defendants' argument rested on […]
A Century After A Failed Attempt At International Mediation . . . 1916, February? "Photograph shows members of the neutral European nations who met with the Henry Ford Peace Expedition in Stockholm, Sweden probably in February, 1916 and formed the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation." Library of Congress. Without a case to post about today, […]
Arbitrator's Discretion To Limit Discovery Did Not Amount To Substantive Unconscionability. Finding "some procedural unconscionability", but not substantive unconscionability, the Court of Appeal reversed Judge Michael L. Stern's order denying defendants' motion to compel arbitration. Spaulding v. PJCA-2, LP et al., B285996 (2/7 2/11/19) (Segal, Zelon, Feuer) (unpublished). The Court held that the arbitration agreement, […]
In Praise Of Mediation? . . . You may have seen the famous print of the farmers fighting over a cow. One pulls the head, the other the tail, while the lawyer sitting on a stool milks the cow. The folk singer John Kirkpatrick sang the song "The Farmers and the Cow", and his rendition […]
This Case Involves The Ability Of Co-Employers To Compel Arbitration With Workers Where Workers Have An Arbitration Agreement With The Co-Employer They Do Not Sue, And Do Not Have An Arbitration Agreement With The Co-Employer They Do Sue. We blogged about Vasquez v. San Miguel Produce, Inc. on January 4, 2019, at which […]
Court Of Appeals Also Distinguishes Between Arbitrator's Power To Deny Attorneys' Fees To Prevailing Party And Court's Error In Denying Attorneys' Fees Incurred In Postarbitration Proceedings. The Court of Appeal has done something very useful in this 57-page slip opinion concerning arbitration proceedings, and we like that. The Court has summarized its holding […]
We Expand On Our January 17, 2019 Post About The Berkeley Cement Case. Our article entitled "Cost-shifting in mediation after Berkeley Cement ruling" appears today, in the January 29, 2019 Daily Journal. If you subscribe to the Daily Journal, then you can access the article on-line. Or you can read a short post about […]
"We have become an arbitration nation," says the Court. The 9th Circuit affirmed the district court's order vacating an arbitration award under the Federal Arbitration Act, concluding that the arbitrator acted beyond his powers, rendering an award that was "irrational", failing to "draw the essence of the award" from subcontracts. Aspic Engineering and Construction […]