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Panel Holds That Lengthy Amount of Time Litigating In Federal Court “Will Almost Inevitably” Cause Parties To Expend More Time, Money, And Effort Than Had They Proceeded Directly To Arbitration.
In Martin v. Yasuda, No. 15-55696 (9th Cir. 7/21/16) (Reinhardt, Wardlaw, Bennet), defendants, a cosmetology school and its principal, petitioned the 9th Circuit to hear an appeal of the district court’s order denying their motion to compel arbitration with cosmetology students who claimed they should be paid as employees. The Ninth Circuit stayed the district court action and agreed to hear the appeal, but then affirmed the district court’s order that defendants had waived their right to arbitrate by their litigation conduct.
Defendants argued unsuccessfully that (a) the issue of waiver should have been decided by the arbitrator under the broad language of an AAA delegation rule; and (b) plaintiffs were not prejudiced by the delay.
The panel disagreed, holding that waiver, like other so-called “gateway issues” involving arbitrability, must be decided by the court. The panel acknowledged that the 8th Circuit has held that the arbitrator presumptively should decide if a party has waived the right to arbitration by litigation conduct, but sought to distinguish that holding on the grounds that the litigation conduct occurred in state court. Nat’l Am. Ins. Co. v. Transamerica Occidental Life Ins. Co., 328 F.3d 462 (8th Cir. 2003).
Though no evidence was actually presented that proceeding in arbitration will be more expensive than proceeding in court going forward, it appears that the 9th Circuit will infer that a lengthy amount of time litigating in the federal court system “will almost inevitably cause the parties to expend more time, money, and effort than had they proceeded directly to arbitration.”
Finally, the panel concluded that a motion to dismiss filed by defendants had resulted in prejudice to plaintiffs, because the dismissal of the motion without prejudice constituted an “adverse ruling”. As a consequence, any party that now brings a motion to dismiss and loses must be concerned that ipso facto they have waived their right to arbitrate.
DISCLOSURE: I participated in drafting the appellant’s petition to the 9th Circuit to stay the district court action while an appeal was pending, and my colleague Mike Hensley argued the appeal for appellants.
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