Employer Fired Employee Hours After He Signed Arbitration Agreement – How Much More Do You Need to Know? Plaintiff Ruzanno instituted arbitration proceedings against defendants Spectrum, Larson, Blake, and National University. The salient fact in this case is that Ruzanno signed the arbitration agreement hours before the employer fired him, purportedly without his […]
Court of Appeal Also Rejects Public Policy Argument Put Forward By County for Vacating Arbitrator’s Award The County of Riverside terminated the Respondent, Ms. Matheson, a network administrator, for allegedly accessing email of the District Attorney’s Office without authorization. Pursuant to the procedure agreed to between the County and Ms. Matheson’s labor union, […]
No Need To Decide Whether Concepcion Overrules Gentry Here – Because "This Is Not A Close Case" These proceedings began in 2004 when Ralphs Grocery Company employees sued Ralphs for alleged violations of the Labor Code and Unfair Competition law. The proceedings moved up and down the appellate ladder. Eventually, after a remand, […]
District Court May Not Decide Whether The Arbitrator "Got It Right" On March 19, 2012, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in an interesting employment company-wide gender discrimination case. Sterling Jewelers Inc. v. Jock, 646 F.3d 113 (2nd Cir. 2011), cert. den., 2012 WL 3356. The […]
Court Highlights Limited Scope of Review of the Final Award Under the FAA – As Compared to Under California Law Appellant Biller worked as an in-house attorney for Toyota Motor Sales (TMS). In 2007, Biller presented TMS with a claim of constructive wrongful discharge related to TMS’s alleged unethical discovery practices. The dispute […]
Delegation to the Arbitrator of the Power to Decide Whether the Arbitration Clause is Unconscionable Is “Horse of a Different Color” That Must Satisfy High Evidentiary Standard The employer, CantorCo2e, L.P., and an executive, appealed from an order denying their petition to compel arbitration of the claims under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) […]
Drafting Mistake by Employer Means Employer Must Accept the Consequences When the employer drafts an arbitration provision, and the Court of Appeal opines, “[i]t appears that there was a huge drafting mistake,” as it did in the next case, you know that the employer is going to have a bad day in court. […]
Arbitration Provision Drafted By Employer in Contract of Adhesion Was Too One-Sided The next case, though unpublished, nicely lays out principles relevant to an arbitration clause in the employment context, including procedural and substantive unconscionability, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preemption, and severability. Mayers v. Volt Managemnt Corp.,Case No. G045036 (4th Dist. Div. 3 […]
Court Rejects Employer’s Arguments That Agreement Lacked Material Terms and Was Obtained Through Fraud. Mejia v. Jhan, Inc., No. B230818 (2nd Dist. Div. 8 January 10, 2012) (unpublished), involved an overtime dispute between the employee, Mejia, and the employer, Jhan, Inc. The parties entered into a settlement agreement calling for the employer to […]
Plenty of Hurdles to Enforcement in This Particular Case In Wisdom v. AccentCare, Inc., No. C065744 (3rd Dist. January 3, 2012) (certified for publication), the Court of Appeal held: “that a clause in an application for employment with AccentCare, Inc. (AccentCare), requiring only the applicant agree that, if hired, all disputes that cannot […]