Employment Arbitration Agreement Unconscionable.

When plaintiff applied for a job as a property manager, she signed an arbitration agreement which was part of the employment application.  It barred class action disputes, provided that all claims had to be filed within one year, was presented on a take it or leave it basis, and stated the employer “has implemented an arbitration procedure to provide quick, fair, final and binding resolution of employment-related legal claims.” However, the agreement provided the employer was exempt from arbitrating trade secrets and unfair competition claims. The trial court granted the employer’s petition to arbitrate plaintiff’s class action complaint for various violations of Labor Code provisions governing payment of wages. The appellate court reversed, stating the arbitration agreement was unfairly one-sided, noting “the combined result of the [] terms is an arbitration provision that imparts a veneer of bilaterality by excluding from arbitration workers compensation, disability, and unemployment benefits claims, which have their own adjudicatory systems and are not proper subjects of arbitration. Once that veneer is stripped away, what remains is a one-sided arbitration agreement provision that requires employees to arbitrate those claims most important to them within a much-shortened limitations period, while leaving [the employer] free to litigate those claims most important to employers within the far longer statutory limitations periods.” Compton v. Sup.Ct. (American Management Services, LLC)  (Cal. App. Second Dist., Div. 8; March 19, 2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 873.