Juarez v. Wash Depot Holdings, Inc.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of a petition to compel arbitration of plaintiff's action for wage and hour violations. In this case, plaintiff was an hourly employee at Wash Depot. Wash Depot adopted a policy set forth in its employee handbook, written in both English and Spanish, requiring arbitration of legal claims arising from the employment relationship. The English version stated that the denial of the right to bring a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) action was severable if such denial was found by a court to be unenforceable, but the Spanish version provided that the PAGA denial was not severable. The court held that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable and the PAGA waiver set forth in the handbook was unenforceable as against public policy; the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to sever the PAGA waiver and enforce the remaining arbitration agreement; and the court construed the ambiguous language against the interest of the party that drafted it. View "Juarez v. Wash Depot Holdings, Inc." on Justia Law