Patent Infringement: Successful Litigation Stays the "Course"
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has rejected an argument that opting out of arbitration clauses precluded arbitration under prior arbitration agreements in a dispute between Uber drivers and...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The first reported PAGA case of 2024 serves as a reminder of the importance of precise language for an enforceable PAGA waiver and the risks of including a “poison pill” provision in a...more
In Marino v. CVS Health, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found defendant CVS Health’s “arbitration of workplace legal disputes policy” and related arbitration agreement compelled arbitration of...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit recently extended the scope of which transportation workers are exempt from arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). In Carmona Mendoza v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, – F.4th –,...more
Hand-signed arbitration agreements will be easier for employers to enforce in light of a recent California Court of Appeal ruling. Declarations from former employees claiming they “do not recall” having signed their...more
Evenskaas v. California Transit Inc. reversed a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s denial of an employer’s motion to compel arbitration of a former employee’s wage and hour class action. The trial court had concluded that the...more
On July 8, 2022, in Gist v. ZoAn Management, Inc., the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the trial court and court of appeals granting the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that...more
Employers who wish to arbitrate disputes with their employees should assert the right to arbitrate promptly—a recent Supreme Court decision has made it easier for employees to show that an employer’s delay constitutes a...more
A recent decision of the United States Supreme Court addressed a circuit split regarding the propriety of arbitration-specific procedural rules. In support of adopting such rules, nine of the eleven federal circuits...more
The United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Morgan v. Sundance eliminates a longstanding rule requiring a plaintiff to establish they would be prejudiced by arbitration to prevail when arguing that a defendant waived...more
A unanimous Supreme Court held May 23 that a party’s waiver of its arbitration right does not require showing prejudice to an opposing party, because the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) prohibits arbitration-specific rules....more
If you have an arbitration agreement, do you have to compel arbitration when the lawsuit is filed or can you wait awhile? This week, the Supreme Court concluded that a party litigating in federal court cannot later compel...more
A pleasant surprise for employers. A California appeals court ruled last week that an employer did not waive its right to arbitration -- despite the fact that the parties had been in litigation for more than 13 months...more
A former driver for UberEats alleged that Uber misclassified drivers as independent contractors as part of a PAGA action. Uber sought an order to compel arbitration of the question of whether the plaintiff was an independent...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit simultaneously issued two decisions addressing the circumstances in which equitable estoppel can require a plaintiff to arbitrate a claim absent an arbitration agreement with the defendant. In the...more
In Garcia v. Haralambos Beverage Co., the California Court of Appeal embraced the adage “time kills all deals” to conclude that an employer waived its right to arbitrate the wage-hour claims at issue in the case by, among...more
Many employers strongly prefer arbitration to litigating with their employees in court. Employers often believe—and the Supreme Court has agreed—that arbitration of employment disputes has many benefits, including potential...more
This month's key California employment law cases involve disability discrimination, wage and hour, and arbitration agreements enforcement. Doe v. Dept. of Corrections & Rehabilitation, No. E071224, 2019 WL 6907515 (Cal....more
On November 26, 2019, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) might not apply to Uber drivers who are engaged in interstate commerce while driving passengers to or...more
ZB, N.A. v. Super Ct. of San Diego Cty., 8 Cal. 5th 175, 252 Cal. Rptr. 3d 228 (2019) - Summary: Employee may not recover unpaid wages under Labor Code section 558 through PAGA. Facts: Plaintiff Lawson worked for...more
OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho, 8 Cal. 5th 111, 251 Cal. Rptr. 3d 714 (2019) - Summary: Mandatory arbitration agreement may be unenforceable against employee wage claims if agreement requires employee to forego Labor Commissioner...more
In our previous blog we wrote about California’s Assembly Bill 51, which largely impacts arbitration agreements by prohibiting employers from requiring employees or applicants for employment to agree to arbitrate claims for...more
In ZB, N.A. v. Superior Court of San Diego County (Lawson), the California Supreme Court held that unpaid wages are not civil penalties under California Labor Code section 558 and are therefore outside the reach of...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Supreme Court has held that an individual may not seek unpaid wages under Labor Code section 558. Section 558 can be invoked only by the Labor Commissioner or by an individual suing under...more
On August 29, 2019, the California Supreme Court held in OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho, S244630, that a mandatory arbitration agreement may be unenforceable against employee wage claims if it requires the employee to forego the “Berman”...more