Employee Did Not Ask For A Translation. Plaintiff Zaragoza filed a wage and hour class action against her employer, and the employer moved, successfully, to compel arbitration. Zaragoza appealed, arguing the arbitration agreement was void and obtained by fraud because she could not read English. Zaragoza v. Sela Healthcare, Inc., E065373 (4/2 9/11/17) (Codrington, […]
Court Ducks Ruling On The Enforceability Of Agreement To Arbitrate False Claims Claims, Saying It Is Only Ruling "On A Rather Unremarkable Textual Analysis." An interesting issue exists as to whether qui tam claims, brought by a private party (the "relator" or "private attorney general") are arbitrable. The argument against arbitrability is that […]
Trial Court Erred By Ruling It Could Not Grant Equitable Remedies In Motion Under Section 664.6. Plaintiff Mathis settled with defendants by agreeing to purchase property from defendants for $1M, with escrow to close in 120 days. The trial court dismissed the underlying case, while retaining jurisdiction under that convenient device, Cal. Code of […]
Sixteen Page Majority Decision Draws Fifteen Page Concurrence And Dissent From Justice Segal. If an agreement to arbitrate is unconscionable, why should decisions about arbitrability ever be sent to the arbitrator? Answer: ordinarily, it is presumed that decisions about arbitrability are to be made by the judge, and therefore a determination that the […]
How Do You Like Them Zombie Cookies? "I walked with a Zombie." 1943. The Ninth Circuit granted a petition for a writ of mandamus and vacated the district court's order that had granted Turn, Inc.'s motion to stay a putative class action and compel arbitration with Turn, Inc., the alleged user of "zombie" cookies. […]
Arbitration Was Required Under A Collective Bargaining Agreement That Did Not Provide For Class Arbitration. Brushing aside thorny appealability issues, Cortez v. Doty Bros. Equipment Company, B275255 (2/7 filed 8/15, pub. order 9/1/17) (Perluss, Zelon, Segal) treated an employee's appeal as a writ of mandate, enabling the Court to address the effect of […]
My Article, "Confidentiality in Arbitration" Is In The Latest Issue of California Litigation And Available Through This Post. My article on "Confidentiality in Arbitration" and an accompanying MCLE test are published in California Litigation, The Journal of the Litigation Section, State Bar of California, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), p. 6. With the permission of […]
Frontier Justice: An Alternative Form Of Dispute Resolution. I just finished reading Glenn Frankel's "HIGH NOON: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic" (Bloomsbury 2017), an enjoyable, very readable and scholarly book about the making of the iconic Western and the scoundrel times of the Hollywood Blacklist, with portraits of those […]
Unreasonable Delay Supported Trial Court's Finding Of Prejudice, Resulting In Waiver Of Right To Arbitrate. Sprunk, et al. v. Prisma LLC, B268755 (2/1 8/23/17) (Lui, Chaney, Johnson) holds that, under the circumstances, defendant Prisma LLC aka "Plan B", an employer of exotic dancers, waived its right to seek arbitration "by filing and then […]
California Law Requires Both Substantive And Procedural Unconscionability To Avoid Enforcement Of Arbitration Provision. The Court of Appeal's conclusion that it was "disturbed by the manner" in which an arbitration agreement was drafted and presented to an employee for signature, and that an "extraordinarily high degree of procedural unconscionability" existed, was not enough […]