In Dictum, Court Suggests Armendariz Is No Longer Good Law Mercado v. Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Inc., Case No. F064478 (5th Dist. July 26, 2013) (Hill, P.J., author 3:0) (unpublished) offers a routine unconscionability analsysis of an employee agreement to arbitrate. Finding “some degree” of procedural unconscionability, based on an adhesive contract and […]
Employer Didn’t Want To Arbitrate Usually employees want their day in court, and employers try to arbitrate, but our next case presents “the unique situation where . . . the employer refuses to arbitrate, arguing the employee waived her contractual rights to arbitrate.” The Court of Appeal had no difficulty satisfying itself that “substantial […]
Ninth Circuit, In A Case Of First Impression, Follows Second And D.C. Circuits In a case of first impression for the Ninth Circuit, the Court of Appeals holds “that as long as an arbitration agreement is between sophisticated parties to commercial contracts, those parties shall be expected to understand that incorporation of the UNCITRAL […]
Court of Appeal Agrees Defendants Failed To Show Plaintiffs Agreed To Specific Arbitration Agreement Submitted To The Court The lesson from the next case – a published decision – is that employer/employee arbitration documents need to mesh together, and an employer cannot rely on sloppy incorporations by reference. The Court neatly sums up its […]
PAGA Claims Could Not Be Arbitrated Because PAGA Is For The Benefit Of The Public, Not Private Parties In Harvey v. Yellowpages.com, Case No. B239733 (2nd Dist. Div. 1 July 22, 2013) (Mallano, J., author of majority opinion) (unpublished), the Court considered whether the trial court properly denied an employer’s petition to compel arbitration […]
Washington D.C. Bicycle Rental Shop. 1942. Marjory Collins, photographer. Library of Congress. Plaintiff Corbin sued her employer Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. and its president for harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination. The trial judge, who commented about the defendant’s failure to provide the JAMS rules, found the agreement unconscionable, and refused to compel arbitration. […]
And Because Montana Law Was Preempted, Choice of Law Principles Required Application Of New York Law To Consumer Transaction Wild Goose Goose Island Overlook at National Glacier Park, Montana. Author: rmhermen. GNU Free Documentation License. After plaintiffs, who resided in Montana, sued their former Internet services provider Bresnan Communications, for enabling an advertiser […]
Petition Was Filed In Time, But Not Properly Served In Time Condo owners with 70-year lease terms were subject to a readjustment of monthly rental after 30 1/2 years. The owners arbitrated the rental readjustment with their lessor, and the outcome was devastating (from the owners’ perspective): a 27-fold increase in average lease payments, […]
Dissent’s Nutshell of Opinion: “Too Darn Bad” The United States Supreme Court, in a 5-3 opinion, has now held that the Federal Arbitration Act does not permit courts to invalidate a contractual waiver of class arbitration just because the plaintiff’s cost of individually arbitrating a federal statutory claim exceeds the potential recovery. American Express […]
Dissenters Worries About Practical Consequences of Arbitrating Furlough Dispute In Budgetary Crisis With this post, I inaugurate a new sidebar category: Collective Bargaining. Facing a fiscal emergency, the City of Los Angeles adopted a mandatory furlough program for its civilian employees. Represented by a union, the employees filed grievances, arguing the furloughs violated […]