The Dispute With District 2, Div. 4, Involved The Reasoning In Patterson v. Superior Court, 70 Cal.App.5th 473 (2021) (Patterson).
The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's court denying Charter's motion in compel arbitration. Ramirez v. Charter Communications, Inc., B309408 (2/4 3/1/22) (Willhite, Manella, Collins). The Court held that the arbitration provisions were unconscionable: the employment contract was one of adhesion; the was a shortened statute of limitations; an interim award of attorneys fees provision was unconscionable; the arbitration agreement was unfairly one-sided because it compelled arbitration of claims more likely to be brought by an employee, the weaker party; a limitation on depositions made it harder for the employee to prove her case.
The noteworthy part of the Ramirez opinion concerns the panel's critique of District 2 Division 7's reasoning in Patterson. The court in Patterson "considered the enforceability of a provision in the same arbitration agreement at issue here that awards attorney fees to the prevailing party on a motion to compel arbitration." The problem with such a provision is that FEHA entitles the prevailing defendant to attorney fees only if the employee’s action was "frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless," and that limitation is not found in Charter's arbitration provisions. In Patterson, however, the court imported the FEHA provision into the attorney's fees provision in order to save the provision. The court in Ramirez disagrees with the Patterson approach, construing the attorney's fees provision to be unambiguous, and therefore not subject to interpretive tinkering.
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