Unconscionability Of Arbitration Clause Involved In Car Wash Employees’ Contracts Was At Issue In This Case Today, Carmona v. Lincoln Millenium Car Wash, Inc., Case No. B248143 (2nd Dist. Div. 8 filed April 21, 2014) (certified for publication May 9, 2014), originally not certified for publication, has been ordered to be published in the […]
Comment on a Comment: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Arbitration Study Preliminary Results Is consumer arbitration fair and efficient? On May 6, 2014, Steven I. Zeisel of the Consumer Bankers Association, “The Voice of the Retail Banking Industry,” posted a comment about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Arbitration Study Preliminary Results, under the […]
Confidentiality Provisions Are “Clear And Absolute.” Yet again, the Court of Appeal reminds us, “[w]e have repeatedly said that these [mediation] confidentiality provisions are clear and absolute.” Syers Properties III, Inc. v. Rankin, et al., Case No. A136018 (1st Dist. Div. 2 May 5, 2014) (Kline, Haerle, Brick) (unpublished). In fact, I am convinced […]
But The Post Does Not Tell The Whole Story Public Citizen, a nonprofit public interest organization, in a somewhat dated (2010?) post contends: “Not only is there no evidence that arbitration reduces the overall transaction costs of litigation (e.g. witness fees, attorney fees, discovery costs), but nobody has expounded a coherent theory to explain […]
Electronic Signing Procedure Didn’t Work Out For The Employer Did the employee or didn’t she agree to arbitrate? Bevmo used an on-line procedure to make the employment handbook and arbitration agreement available to employees, and employees provided an electronic signature, showing that they had received and read the employment handbook. That procedure was […]
A Refresher On When Subject Matter Jurisdiction Can Be Raised As An Issue: Anytime We inaugurate a new sidebar category: Jurisdiction. The next case, involving an employee’s appeal of a judgment confirming an adverse arbitration award, is a useful refresher on a fundamental point concerning lack of subject matter jurisdiction: it’s never too […]
Standard of Review, As Well As JAMS Rules, Largely Determine The Outcome As the Court of Appeal explains in the next case, “[w]e apply a highly deferential standard of review to the award itself, insofar as our inquiry encompasses the arbitrators’ resolution of questions of fact or law.” Put even more succinctly, “it […]
Non-Parties To The Arbitration Agreement Were Not “Third Parties” Within The Meaning Of Section 1281.2(c). The trial court denied defendants’ motion to compel arbitration, under the third party litigation exception found in Cal. Code Civ. Proc. 1281.2(c) to the general rule requiring enforcement of an arbitration agreement. Here, only one of several defendants was […]
Failure To Translate Relevant Contractual Provisions Into Spanish For Spanish-Speaking Employees Elevated This Case “To A High Degree Of Procedural Unconscionability” Car wash employees brought a putative class action against their employer for wage and hour violations. The trial court held the arbitration agreement was unconscionable and refused to enforce it. Employer appealed. Carmona […]
GRRRRRRRRR . . . . If you are reading this post, we thank you for your loyalty! Since last week, our internet platform, the usually very reliable Typepad, owned by SAY Media, has been subjected to a “distributed denial-of-service attack.” A DDOS attack is intended to make a network resource unavailable to […]