Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Defendant RGIS, LLC (RGIS) appealed a trial court’s order denying its petition to compel arbitration of representative claims under the Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA). In denying the petition, the trial court followed the California Supreme Court’s decision in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, 59 Cal.4th 348 (2014), which held that individual employees cannot contractually waive their right to bring a representative action under the PAGA, and this state law rule was not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). RGIS argued that the Supreme Court’s holding in Iskanian was subsequently abrogated by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis, __ U.S. __ [138 S.Ct. 1612] (2018). The Court of Appeal found, however, that Epic Systems did not consider the same issue concerning the nonwaivable nature of PAGA claims decided by Iskanian. Accordingly, and along with every published appellate decision that has decided this issue, the Court rejected the argument and followed Iskanian. Although it agreed with the multitude of reported cases addressing this issue, the Court published this opinion because this was an issue of first impression for this district. View "Williams v. RGIS, LLC" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion confirming an Indian arbitration award and enjoined further litigation. In this case, after defendant secured an arbitral award for his maritime injuries, he continued to pursue litigation against the alleged wrongdoers and disputes that there was an enforceable agreement to arbitrate at all.The court rejected defendant's contention that the district court lost its jurisdiction to enforce the award in 2002, when it remanded the pre-arbitration suit to state court. Rather, the court concluded that the remand order lacked preclusive effect and the district court had subject matter jurisdiction to confirm the arbitral award. The court further concluded that it was precluded from from revisiting the issue of whether the deed contains an enforceable arbitration clause. Likewise, defendant's argument that Neptune's signature was required would have fared no better in this court. Finally, the court concluded that the state court's ruling is preclusive on the question of whether the district court erred in barring him from litigating against Talmidge, American Eagle, and Britannia because only Neptune was a party to the deed. View "Neptune Shipmanagement Services PTE, Ltd. v. Dahiya" on Justia Law

Timothy and Rebecca Hillhouse entered into a contract with Chris Cook Construction for the construction of their home. The contract contained an arbitration provision mandating that arbitration be conducted before a forum that was unavailable at the time the contract was executed. The trial court entered an order compelling arbitration and appointing an arbitrator. The Mississippi Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred in so doing: because the forum was a contract requirement, the arbitration provision was unenforceable, and appointing an arbitrator required courts to reform the contractual agreement between the parties. Judgment was reversed and the trial court’s order compelling arbitration and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Hillhouse v. Chris Cook Construction, LLC, et al." on Justia Law

In this dispute over internet names, DotConnect appealed to ICANN's internal dispute resolution program and told the arbitrators they should grant it seven procedural advantages during the arbitration—advantages like interim relief and an independent standard of review. The arbitrators accepted DotConnect's arguments and gave DotConnect the advantages it sought, but the arbitrators did not award the .africa name to DotConnect. ICANN ultimately rejected DotConnect and awarded ZA the rights to .africa. DotConnect then filed suit against ICANN in Los Angeles Superior Court, where the trial court ruled against DotConnect on grounds of judicial estoppel.The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's application of judicial estoppel and concluded that DotConnect has estopped itself from suing in court by convincing ICANN's arbitrators DotConnect could not sue in court. In this case, DotConnect took two contrary positions; DotConnect took these positions in quasi-judicial and judicial settings; DotConnect used its initial position—"we cannot sue in court"—to persuade the panel to award DotConnect seven legal victories; DotConnect's positions are totally inconsistent; DotConnect did not take its initial position as the result of fraud, ignorance, or mistake; and the trial court had an ample basis to decide, in its discretion, to apply the doctrine of judicial estoppel to this case. The court rejected DotConnect's arguments to the contrary. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment in all respects and awarded costs to respondents. View "DotConnectAfrica Trust v. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers" on Justia Law

Williams International Company LLC designed, manufactured, and serviced small jet engines. Dodson International Parts, Inc., sold new and used aircraft and aircraft parts. After purchasing two used jet engines that had been manufactured by Williams, Dodson contracted with Williams to inspect the engines and prepare an estimate of repair costs, intending to resell the repaired engines. Williams determined that the engines were so badly damaged that they could not be rendered fit for flying, but it refused to return one of the engines because Dodson had not paid its bill in full. Dodson sued Williams in federal court alleging federal antitrust and state-law tort claims. Williams moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), relying on an arbitration clause on the original invoices. The district court granted the motion, and the arbitrator resolved all of Dodson’s claims in favor of Williams. Dodson then moved to reconsider the order compelling arbitration and to vacate the arbitrator’s award. The court denied both motions and, construing Williams’s opposition to the motion for vacatur as a request to confirm the award, confirmed the award. Dodson appealed, challenging the district court’s order compelling arbitration and its order confirming the award and denying the motions for reconsideration and vacatur. After review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed, holding: (1) the claims in Dodson’s federal-court complaint were encompassed by the arbitration clause; (2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Dodson’s untimely motion to reconsider; and (3) that Dodson failed to establish any grounds for vacatur of the arbitrator’s award or for denial of confirmation of the award. View "Dodson International Parts v. Williams International Company" on Justia Law

Harper runs deliveries under the “Amazon Flex” program, which supplements Amazon’s traditional delivery services. Interested drivers use an app to sign up to drive packages from Amazon warehouses, affiliated grocers, and participating restaurants to home shoppers. Harper signed up, clicking on a brightly colored button stating, “I AGREE AND ACCEPT” following the Terms of Service. The Terms included an arbitration provision with an “opt-out” process and specified that Washington law applies. Harper filed a putative class action on behalf of similarly situated New Jersey Amazon Flex drivers, alleging that Amazon misclassified them as independent contractors when they really are employees. Amazon moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. Harper cited the exemption for a “class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce,” 9 U.S.C. 1, noting that the drivers make some deliveries across state lines. Amazon argued that the claim is also arbitrable under state law. The district court ordered discovery to determine whether Harper falls within the FAA exception, declining to reach Amazon’s alternative state law argument.The Third Circuit vacated. Federal courts sitting in diversity must decide state law claims, including state arbitrability, even where the FAA may apply. That is a threshold inquiry, ensuring prompt review of state law claims, particularly before turning to discovery to sort through a comparatively complex federal question. View "Harper v. Amazon.com Services, Inc." on Justia Law

Respondent Simran Singh (Mother) and Petitioner Gunjit Singh (Father) separated in January of 2012. They entered into a settlement agreement which resolved all issues arising from their marriage, including custody and visitation matters involving their two children, then aged eleven and two. Pursuant to that agreement, Mother received primary custody, and the parties consented to submit any future disputes regarding child support or visitation to a mutually agreed-upon arbitrator, specifically providing that his or her decision would "be binding and non-appealable." The family court approved the agreement and granted the parties a divorce in February of 2013. Approximately nine months later, Father filed an action in family court seeking modification of custody, visitation, and child support, alleging Mother had violated a provision of the agreement when she failed to return to South Carolina with the children after embarking on a cross-country tour as a motivational speaker. From January through August of 2014, four family court judges issued decisions— one dismissing Father’s complaint due to the parties' decision to arbitrate; a second issuing a consent order to arbitrate; and two approving amended agreements to arbitrate. The arbitrator issued a "partial" arbitration award finding a substantial and material change of circumstance affecting the welfare and custody of the minor children, and awarding Father temporary custody. A thirty-two-page final arbitration award was issued the next month, awarding custody to Father. A fifth family court judge issued an order in January 2015 confirming both the partial and final arbitration awards. Thereafter, Mother filed five separate Rule 60(b)(4), SCRCP, motions to vacate all the orders approving the parties' agreements to arbitrate. The court of appeals issued its unanimous decision in December of 2019, holding that the parties could not divest the family court of jurisdiction to determine issues relating to custody, visitation, and child support. One month prior, another panel of the court of appeals issued a decision in Kosciusko v. Parham, 836 S.E.2d 362 (Ct. App. 2019), holding the family court did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to approve the binding arbitration of children's issues. The South Carolina Supreme Court granted certiorari, and affirmed as modified, the appellate court's order. View "Singh v. Singh" on Justia Law

Onfido provides biometric identification software that is incorporated into its customers’ products and mobile apps for verifying users’ identities. Onfido partnered with OfferUp—an online consumer marketplace—to verify users’ identities. Sosa verified his identity with OfferUp using the technology provided by Onfido—the app’s TruYou feature. To complete the verification process, Sosa uploaded a photograph of his driver’s license and a photograph of his face. Sosa alleges that Onfido then used biometric identification technology without his consent to extract his biometric identifiers and compare the two photographs.Sosa brought class action claims against Onfido under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Onfido moved to stay the case and to compel individual arbitration based on an arbitration provision in OfferUp’s Terms of Service. The district court rejected each of Onfido’s nonparty contract enforcement theories and denied Onfido’s motion. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Onfido failed to establish that there was an outcome-determinative difference between Illinois and Washington law, and the district court properly applied Illinois law—the law of the forum state—to determine that Onfido failed to establish that it was a third-party beneficiary of the Terms of Service or that it could otherwise enforce the contract’s arbitration provision either as an agent of OfferUp or on equitable estoppel grounds. View "Sosa v. Onfido, Inc." on Justia Law

T & H Services performed operation and maintenance services at Fort Carson Army base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, under a contract with the United States Army (the Army Contract) that was governed by several federal labor-standards statutes, including the Service Contract Act, and the Davis-Bacon Act. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 113 (the Union) represented some T&H employees under a collective-bargaining agreement (the CBA) that included a provision for binding arbitration of disputes “limited to matters of interpretation or application of express provisions of [the CBA].” Several Union members who repaired weather-damaged roofs at Fort Carson in the summer of 2018 were paid the hourly rate for general maintenance workers under Schedule A of the CBA. The Union, believing that the workers should have been classified as roofers under the Davis-Bacon Act and paid the corresponding hourly rate under the schedule, filed a grievance and sought arbitration of the dispute. When T&H refused, claiming that the dispute was not arbitrable under the CBA, the Union filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado to compel arbitration under section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The district court agreed with T&H that the dispute was not arbitrable and granted summary judgment to the company. The Union appeals. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 113 v. T&H Services" on Justia Law

Postmates’ website enables customers to arrange for deliveries from local businesses. Beginning in March 2017, prospective couriers seeking to offer their delivery services were presented with Postmates’ Fleet Agreement when logging on for the first time. The Agreement directs a prospective courier to review a mutual arbitration provision that applies to “any and all claims between the [p]arties,” including claims related to a courier’s classification as an independent contractor, delivery fees received by a courier, and state and local wage and hour laws. It includes a “Representative Action Waiver.” There is an opt-out provision: “Arbitration is not a mandatory condition of [the courier’s] contractual relationship with Postmates. ” Plaintiffs acknowledged the Fleet Agreement. Postmates did not receive opt-out forms for any of them. In December 2017, Plaintiffs filed a putative class and representative action, alleging Labor Code violations. The trial court denied Postmates’s petition to compel arbitration of Private Attorney General Act claims for civil penalties, citing the California Supreme Court’s 2017 “Iskanian” holding that representative action waivers were unenforceable. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting Postmates’ arguments that Iskanian was abrogated by subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Iskanian expressly established that the Federal Arbitration Act does not preempt state law on the enforceability of PAGA waivers. View "Winns v. Postmates Inc." on Justia Law