Published Appellate Opinion Establishes Key Authority on Arbitration Agreement Enforcement

The firm achieved a significant appellate victory in a published opinion addressing the manner in which employers prove the existence of arbitration agreements with their employees. In this case, a former employee of a mining client filed a wage-and-hour class action, and Belden Blaine Raytis, LLP promptly sought to compel the employee to assert his claims on an individual basis in arbitration per the terms of a written arbitration agreement that the employee had signed by hand. The trial court denied the motion to compel arbitration on the grounds that the employer had failed to establish the existence of an arbitration agreement, concluding that the employee’s statement that he did not recall signing the arbitration agreement shifted the burden back to the employer to conclusively establish that the employee had, indeed, signed the agreement as the employer claimed. Following zealous oral and written advocacy by Belden Blaine Raytis, LLP attorneys Kaleb Judy and Tyler Anthony, the Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s ruling, holding that the employee’s feigned ignorance of the arbitration agreement was both insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute as to whether he had signed the agreement and insufficient to shift the burden back to the employer where the employee did not otherwise dispute that the signature on the agreement was, in fact, his. The Court’s Opinion was ordered published and is regularly cited in both in trial courts and Court of Appeal opinions throughout the state.