Patent Infringement: Successful Litigation Stays the "Course"
The plaintiff was employed by defendant Pilot Catastrophe Services Inc. as an insurance claims adjuster, where she was responsible for inspecting property damage claims and providing damage estimates to insurance companies....more
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
A federal appeals court recently refused to let a mortgage broker send its former employee’s disability discrimination lawsuit to arbitration, stating the company waived its right to arbitration when it actively participated...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
California employers know that the new year inevitably brings new workplace laws that are finalized at the end of the state’s legislative session in the fall. This year, state lawmakers considered over 2,700 bills – the most...more
Here is what we cover in this issue of Employment Law Reporter Autumn 2023: • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York...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
Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, No. 20-15291, 2021 WL 4187860 (9th Cir. Sep. 15, 2021) - Summary: The FAA does not preempt Labor Code section 432.6’s prohibition of mandatory employment arbitration agreements, but does...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
When can you compel arbitration of a putative class action? The law is developing quickly and still doesn’t provide a crystal clear answer. The Ninth Circuit recently weighed in on two cases examining what happens when 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
Seyfarth Synopsis: The data and analysis from workplace class action rulings, case filings, and settlements showed that change is the new normal in 2020-2021. As many pro-business precedents continued to roll out and take...more
Barriga v. 99 Cents Only Stores LLC, 2020 WL 3481717 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020) - Sofia Wilton Barriga filed this lawsuit against her employer, 99 Cents Only, alleging that the “zero-tolerance” policy requiring its stores to...more
Although the Supreme Court of the United States has not yet taken up the issue, California courts routinely hold an employee cannot be compelled to submit to arbitration an action seeking penalties under the Private Attorneys...more