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7 Harv. Negotiation L. Rev. 403
Harvard Negotiation Law Review
Spring 2002
Case Comment
DIVIDED COURT CROSSES WIRES OVER CIRCUIT CITY DECISION: HOLDING CASTS DOUBT ON NINTH
CIRCUIT’S DUFFIELD DECISION
Keith A. Becker, Dianne R. LaRocca
Copyright © 2002 Harvard Negotiation Law Review; Keith A. Becker, Dianne R. LaRocca
Circuit City Stores Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 121 S. Ct. 1302 (2001)
Introduction
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court in Circuit City Stores Inc. v. Adams1 held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) covers
employment contracts of workers unless that class of workers has been specifically exempted from the Act. The majority,
applying the maxim ejusdem generis,2 interpreted the exemption of employment contracts of seamen and railroad workers in
Section 2 of the Act as relating only to transportation workers. Denouncing the decision as a “sad result,” Justices Souter and
Stevens, in separate dissents, criticized the majority’s failure to account for the legislative history, intent, and original scope
of the Act. The caustic dissents highlight the contentious debate that has surfaced during the past decade regarding
employer-mandated arbitration agreements.
While the Court’s decision forced Circuit City employees to arbitrate their employment disputes, the reach of the Circuit City
decision appears to be uncertain. As evidenced by recent cases, debate has emerged within the Ninth Circuit regarding the
current state of the Circuit’s decision in Duffield v. Robertson Stephens & Co., 3 which held that an employer cannot require
an employee to arbitrate claims under Title VII or parallel state statutes as a condition of employment. 4 Although the
Supreme Court in Circuit City reversed the *404 Ninth Circuit’s holding that employment contracts were outside the reach of
the FAA, the Court never specifically addressed the Duffield decision. Furthermore, upon remand, the Ninth Circuit found
Adams’ employment contract unconscionable as a matter of California law without addressing the Duffield precedent. 5
This case comment begins with an examination of the Circuit City decision, reviewing the starkly contrasting majority and
minority views. An analysis of the effect of the Circuit City decision upon the Ninth Circuit’s holding in Duffield follows,
with special attention paid to the debate over whether Circuit City implicitly overruled Duffield. Finally, the comment offers
predictions about the direction likely to be taken by federal courts after Circuit City.
Facts and Procedural History
On October 23, 1995, Saint Clair Adams completed a six-page employment application to work as a sales counselor at the
Santa Rosa, California location of Circuit City Stores, a national electronics retailer. As part of the application, Adams signed
the “Circuit City Dispute Resolution Agreement,” which required employees to submit all claims and disputes with Circuit
City to binding arbitration.6 One cannot work for Circuit City without signing the agreement. 7 The agreement stated, in
relevant part:
I agree that I will settle any and all previously unasserted claims, disputes or controversies arising out of or relating to my
application or candidacy for employment, employment and/or cessation of employment with Circuit City, exclusively by
final and binding arbitration before a neutral Arbitrator. By way of example only, such claims include claims under federal,
state, and local statutory or common law, such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964, as amended, including the amendments of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the
law of contract and the law of tort.8
Two years later, Adams filed an employment discrimination lawsuit in California state court, alleging claims under
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California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) as well as other general tort claims.9 Circuit City subsequently filed
suit in the United States *405 District Court for the Northern District of California seeking to enjoin the state court action and
to compel arbitration of Adams’ claims pursuant to the FAA. 10
The District Court entered the order to enforce arbitration, which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
subsequently reversed. Basing its decision upon Craft v. Campbell Soup Co.,11 the Ninth Circuit held that the arbitration
agreement between Adams and Circuit City was an “employment contract” and therefore unenforceable under the FAA.12
Circuit City appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, noting that the Ninth Circuit’s holding conflicted with every other
appellate interpretation of Sections 1 and 2 of the FAA, as discussed below. 13
Applicable Statutory Language
The Circuit City decision involved the first two sections of the FAA. Section 1 excludes from the Act’s coverage “contracts
of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”14
Section 2 provides that:
A written provision in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by
arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract or transaction, or the refusal to perform the whole or any part
thereof, or an agreement in writing to submit to arbitration an existing controversy arising out of such contract, transaction, or
refusal, shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of
any contract.15
Majority Opinion
Reversing the Ninth Circuit’s decision, the Supreme Court held that the FAA’s provisions for the enforcement of arbitration
*406 agreements extend to the employment contracts of workers not specifically exempted from coverage under the Act. 16
Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, argued that exempting all contracts of employment from the FAA’s reach would
render the specific exemption of “contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers
engaged in . . . interstate commerce” meaningless.17 The Court also indicated that such an interpretation would be
inconsistent with Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp. 18 In Gilmer, the Court held that Section 2 required the arbitration
of an age discrimination claim based upon a securities registration application that included a mandatory agreement to
arbitrate employment disputes.19
Reading Section 2 of the FAA to include employment contracts, the majority found that excluding arbitration agreements in
employment contracts from the FAA’s reach must be premised on the language of the exclusion provision in Section 1. 20
However, the majority found that interpreting the “engaged in . . . commerce” language in Section 1 as broadly as the
“involving commerce” provision in Section 2 would create insurmountable textual obstacles. 21 Applying the maxim ejusdem
generis, the Court decided that construing the residual phrase, “any other class of workers engaged in . . . commerce,” to
exclude all employment contracts would fail to give independent effect to the statute’s previous enumeration of the specific
categories “seamen” and “railroad employees.”22 The majority further argued that Congress uses different modifiers of the
word “commerce” in the design and enactment of its statutes. Unlike the broad interpretation of “involving commerce”
promulgated in Allied-Bruce Terminex Cos. v. Dobson,23 the general words “in commerce” and the specific phrase “engaged
in commerce” are understood to have a more limited reach. The majority also found it would be unwieldly for Congress,
courts, and litigants to take into account the scope of the Commerce Clause as of the date of the FAA’s enactment in order to
interpret what the statute means today.24
*407 Even while acknowledging that the Court need not assess the legislative history of the FAA’s exclusion provision, the
majority noted that the legislative record on the Section 1 exemption is sparse. 25 There is no language in the committee report
or the House or Senate floor debates addressing the meaning of the provision. 26 The only pertinent history, according to the
majority, is testimony before a Senate subcommittee hearing. The Court refused to attribute this testimony to Congress
because it was based on the concerns of labor unions that lobbied against the FAA proposal. 27 In addition, the majority
indicated that it was reasonable to assume that Congress excluded “seamen” and “railroad employees” from the FAA because
it did not wish to unsettle established or developing statutory dispute resolution schemes covering specific workers. 28 Given
Congress’ demonstrated concern for transportation workers and the workers’ necessary role in the free flow of goods, the
Court reasoned that it is rational to reserve through the residual exclusion of “any other class of workers engaged in foreign
or interstate commerce” more specific legislation for those engaged in transportation. 29 Additionally, the majority pointed out
that the issue of states’ rights was not implicated in Circuit City because it concerned the application of the FAA in federal
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rather than state court.30
Justice Stevens’ Dissent
In a spirited dissent, Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter, accused the majority of “playing
ostrich to the substantial history behind the amendment.”31 Consequently, Justice Stevens argued, the majority arrived at a
“sad result” arising from a “deliberately uninformed, and hence unconstrained” effort to “defeat the very purpose for which a
provision was enacted.”32
Justice Stevens rested his dissent primarily upon an examination of the legislative history of the FAA, as evinced by Senate
subcommittee hearings, American Bar Association documents, and union annual reports that, in his view, shed light upon the
purpose and intent of the FAA.33
*408 Justice Stevens first attacked the premise that the FAA was intended to apply in the employment context, asserting that
it was drafted to encourage arbitration in the commercial context only. 34 In support of this assertion, Justice Stevens
reminded the Court that the Act was drafted by the Committee on Commerce, Trade, and Commercial Law of the American
Bar Association to encourage “the further extension of the principle of commercial arbitration.”35 According to Justice
Stevens, “neither the history of the drafting of the original bill by the ABA, nor the records of the deliberations in Congress ...
contains any evidence that the proponents of the legislation intended it to apply to agreements affecting employment.”36
Justice Stevens next acknowledged the initial objection to the FAA by organized labor. Referring to Senate subcommittee
and union documents, Justice Stevens indicated that the exceptions contained within Section 1 of the FAA arose due to
concerns expressed by the American Federation of Labor and the International Longshoremen’s Union that the FAA would
lead courts to enforce arbitration agreements in employment contracts. 37 Pointing to the legislative history of the FAA
regarding employment contracts, Justice Stevens noted significant conflicts between circuits regarding the FAA’s
implementation throughout the 1950s, as well as the Court’s rejection of an argument to read Section 1 as excluding only
transportation workers in Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala. 38 Indeed, Justice Stevens pointed out that along with the
dissenting judges in Circuit City, former Justices Felix Frankfurter, in Lincoln Mills, and Thurgood Marshall, in Gilmer, also
read Section 1 as excluding all employment contracts from the FAA’s reach. 39 Arguing that a court that refuses to look
beyond the statutory text “misuses its authority,” Justice Stevens quoted Israeli Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak’s
statement that “the ‘minimalist’ judge who ‘holds that the purpose of the statute may be learned only from its language’ has
more discretion that the judge ‘who will seek guidance from every reliable source.”’40
*409 Justice Souter’s Dissent
Justice Souter wrote a separate dissenting opinion in which he encouraged an “evolutionary reading” of Section 1 that would
“produce an elastic reach, based on an understanding that Congress used language intended to go as far as Congress could go,
whatever that might be over time.”41
Taking issue with the majority’s distinctions between “engaged in” and “involving” commerce, Justice Souter stated that
“[t]he Court ha[d] no good reason ... to reject a reading of ‘engaged in’ as an expression of intent to legislate to the full extent
of the commerce power over employment contracts.”42 In support of his argument, Justice Souter noted that at the time the
FAA was passed “the only employment relationships subject to the commerce power were those in which workers were
actually engaged in interstate commerce.”43 Justice Souter next criticized the majority’s reliance on ejudsem generis to
determine the meaning of Section 1 of the FAA. He concluded that “ejudsem generis is a fallback” that “is triggered only by
uncertain statutory text” which “can be overcome by, inter alia, contrary legislative history.”44 He then argued that “[t]he
Court ... turn[ed] this practice upside down, using ejusdem generis to establish that the text is so clear that legislative history
is irrelevant.”45
Analysis
Both the majority and dissenting opinions in Circuit City were framed around a narrow question: whether or not the FAA
excluded all employment contracts.46 This framework was constructed by the Ninth Circuit’s brief, three-page decision that
Circuit City’s agreement to arbitrate was unenforceable because employment contracts were excluded from the reach of the
FAA.47 The fact that the Ninth Circuit decided Circuit City upon such narrow grounds precluded the consideration of
ancillary issues relevant to the often-contentious debate regarding mandatory arbitration provisions. In Duffield, the Ninth
Circuit raised one such consideration.
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*410 Duffield: The Ninth Circuit Takes a Stand on Pre-employment Agreements to Arbitrate
The issue presented in Duffield was whether employees may be required to submit claims arising under Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and parallel state statutes to mandatory arbitration. 48 The Ninth Circuit held that an
employer cannot require an employee, as a condition of employment, to waive his or her right to a judicial forum regarding
claims under Title VII or parallel state statutes.49 The rationale for the Duffield decision was based upon Section 118 of the
Civil Rights Act of 1991, which states that “[w]here appropriate and to the extent authorized by law, the use of alternative
means of dispute resolution including ... arbitration is encouraged to resolve disputes arising under the Acts or provisions of
Federal law amended by this Title.”50 Upon examining the text, legislative history and intent of the Act, the court found that
requiring an employee to waive his or her right to a judicial forum regarding claims under Title VII or parallel state statutes
as a condition of employment was inappropriate because it runs against the intent of Section 118 to expand, rather than
contract, the rights and remedies available to civil rights plaintiffs. 51 Additionally, the court found such a requirement was
not legally permissible since “[t]he overwhelming weight of the law at the time Congress drafted § 118 ... was to the effect
that compulsory agreements to arbitrate Title VII claims were unenforceable.”52
After Circuit City: Ninth Circuit Courts Split on Interpretation
Since Circuit City, federal courts within the Ninth Circuit have split over the proper application of Duffield. In multiple cases
in the Northern and Central Districts of California, courts within the same district have come to opposite conclusions
regarding whether Duffield was overruled by Circuit City. 53 Additionally, whereas the District of Oregon has concluded that
Duffield is still good law, the district of Hawaii has posited that Duffield has been overruled by Circuit *411 City.54
Additionally, the D.C. Circuit, while reaching a decision on an unrelated ground, has noted the uncertainty about whether the
Ninth Circuit will adhere to its ruling in Duffield after Circuit City.55 Numerous articles have also recognized the ambiguity
surrounding Duffield’s present status within the Ninth Circuit. 56
The courts that have interpreted Circuit City as overruling Duffield appear to be extending Circuit City’s holding beyond its
stated bounds. As cited by the Ninth Circuit cases upholding Duffield, there is no mention of the Duffield case, its rationale,
or the specific issue of the legality of agreements to arbitrate as a condition of employment within the Circuit City decision.57
In fact, the Supreme Court passed up the opportunity to overrule Duffield specifically by denying it certiorari in 1998.58 Even
if the Supreme Court intended for Circuit City to overrule Duffield, Circuit City’s narrow framework appears to preclude
courts from taking such a broad interpretation. Interestingly, none of the post-Circuit City decisions that have overruled
Duffield address the fact that the two cases were decided upon different grounds. Indeed, only one such decision even
considered the reasoning of Duffield, which focuses not on the provisions of the FAA, but rather upon the merits of
arbitration as a means to resolve claims under Title VII and similar state statues. 59 Had the Court in Circuit City decided the
case upon broader grounds than the FAA’s applicability in employment contracts, it is possible that the Duffield decision
would have been considered or overruled.
*412 Ninth Circuit Fashions New Outlet for Employees
The same week that the Circuit City decision was entered, the Supreme Court decided three other cases pertaining to Circuit
City’s mandatory arbitration agreement.60 All three of them were vacated and remanded to the Ninth Circuit for
reconsideration in light of the court’s decision in Circuit City. The Court, giving the Ninth Circuit cause to reconsider its
holding in Circuit City, stated:
[A]rbitration agreements can be enforced under the FAA without contravening the policies of congressional enactments
giving employees specific protection against discrimination prohibited by federal law; as noted in Gilmer, ‘[b]y agreeing to
arbitrate a statutory claim, a party does not forgo the substantive rights afforded by the statute; it only submits to their
resolution in an arbitral, rather than a judicial, forum.’61
On February 4, 2002, the Ninth Circuit reached a decision on the remanded Circuit City case. Noting that “Section 2 of the
FAA provides that arbitration agreements ‘shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds that exist at
law or in equity for the revocation of any contract,”’62 the court held, relying upon California Supreme Court’s decision in
Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc.,63 that Circuit City’s compulsory arbitration agreement was
unconscionable under California law.64
In finding procedural unconscionability, the court recognized the great disparity in bargaining power between the two parties
and noted that the agreement required prospective employees to sign it or forego employment with Circuit City. 65 Regarding
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substantive unconscionability, the court pointed to the one-sidedness of the agreement. Asserting that “Circuit City has
devised an arbitration agreement that functions as a thumb on Circuit City’s side of the scale should an employment dispute
ever arise between the company and one of its employees,”66 the court found that the requirement *413 that employees
arbitrate all claims against the employer, absent a parallel requirement that the employer arbitrate claims against the
employee, failed to provide the “modicum of bilaterality” required by Armendariz.67 Additionally, the agreement’s
limitations on relief available to plaintiffs, its one-year statute of limitations, and its requirement that the employee split the
cost of the arbitrator’s fee with the company further influenced the court’s finding. 68
Duffield’s Uncertain Future
The Ninth Circuit’s Circuit City decision on remand appears to represent another attempt by the Circuit to carve out space for
employees to avoid enforcement of compulsory arbitration agreements. In crafting its decision around state unconscionability
provisions, the Ninth Circuit made it extremely unlikely that the decision will be appealed to, or granted certiorari by, the
Supreme Court. Additionally, having failed to address the Duffield precedent in the remanded decision, the Ninth Circuit left
open the question of whether employees are required to submit Title VII claims to arbitration.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding the strong words of the Supreme Court and the fact that Duffield is undeniably in tension with the decisions
of many other courts,69 the Ninth Circuit’s stalwart position on compulsory arbitration of Title VII and similar claims makes
it unlikely that the Circuit will interpret Duffield as having been overruled. This leaves courts within the Ninth Circuit with at
least two options to prevent compulsory arbitration of such claims. Depending upon the particular terms of the agreement,
Courts may apply state law provisions to find compulsory arbitration agreements unconscionable. In the alternative, Courts
within the Ninth Circuit might find compulsory arbitration agreements unenforceable under Duffield, at least with respect to
Title VII and similar claims.
This leaves employers in California with some difficult choices regarding arbitration agreements. It seems doubtful that
employers will modify arbitration agreements to fit the criteria required by Armendariz, since that would limit employers to
an arbitral forum in *414 any dispute the company has with its employees. Such disputes might include copyright
infringement, covenants not to compete, and embezzlement. Employers that do not modify their compulsory arbitration
agreements to correspond to the Armendariz criteria, however, might have to litigate to establish their agreement’s
enforceability.
It is also doubtful that employers will modify arbitration agreements to exclude Title VII and similar claims, as this would
greatly decrease the utility of the agreements. Until the Ninth Circuit has an opportunity to revisit the Duffield precedent,
employers are more likely to proceed as if Duffield were overruled.
As noted above, the issue of employer mandated arbitration of Title VII and similar claims is a contentious one in both legal
and academic circles. Because the applicability of mandatory arbitration agreements to Title VII claims is a question of
statutory interpretation rather than constitutional law, Congress may simply pass legislation overruling the Supreme Court’s
decision that employment contracts are subject to the provisions of the FAA. In fact, the Preservation of Civil Rights
Protections Act of 2001, which would amend the FAA to exclude all employment contracts from arbitration, is currently
before the House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations.70
Without specific direction, however, courts within the Ninth Circuit will likely continue to interpret the status of Duffield in
conflicting ways. One means of maintaining the Duffield precedent while sustaining employee’s Title VII rights would be to
replace compulsory arbitration agreements with voluntary agreements to arbitrate--where employers and employees agree to
arbitrate after a dispute has arisen because both parties consider arbitration to be a more satisfactory or expeditious method of
resolving the dispute. Such agreements would protect workers’ substantive rights as guaranteed in the Constitution and Title
VII, allow the Ninth Circuit to adhere to its Duffield precedent, and lessen the tension between the Ninth Circuit’s and other
Circuit courts’ decisions. Regardless of the impending judicial resolution of the issue, however, the implications of
compulsory arbitration agreements on issues of workers’ rights, freedom of contract, federalism, and judicial efficiency will
remain significant.
Footnotes
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1
532 U.S. 105 (2001).
2
“A canon of construction that when a general word or phrase follows a list of specific persons or things, the general word or
phrase will be interpreted to include only persons or things of the same type as those listed.” Black’s Law Dictionary 535 (7th ed.
1999).
3
114 F.3d 1182 (9th Cir. 1998).
4
Id.
5
2002 WL 152986, at *1 (9th Cir. Feb. 4, 2002).
6
532 U.S. at 109.
7
Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 194 F.3d 1070, 1071 (9th Cir. 1999).
8
532 U.S. at 109-10 (alteration in original).
9
Id. The basis for Adams’ claims was that he was allegedly being harassed due to his sexual orientation. Whereas Title VII
currently excludes sexual preference as a basis for workplace discrimination or harrassment claims, California law includes
protections for workers discriminated against due to their sexual preference.
10
Id.
11
177 F.3d 1083, 1094 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding that the FAA does not apply to labor or employment contracts).
12
532 U.S. at 110.
13
Id.
14
Federal Arbitration Act, 9 USC §1 (1925).
15
Federal Arbitration Act, 9 USC §2 (1925).
16
532 U.S. at 111.
17
Id. at 113.
18
500 U.S. 20 (1991).
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19
Id.
20
532 U.S. at 113.
21
Id at 114.
22
Id.
23
513 U.S. 265 (1995).
24
532 U.S. at 118.
25
Id. at 119.
26
Id.
27
Id. at 119-20.
28
532 U.S. at 120-21.
29
Id. at 121.
30
Id. at 122.
31
Id. at 128.
32
532 U.S. at 133.
33
Id. at 124-33.
34
Id. at 125.
35
Id.
36
532 U.S. at 126.
37
Id. at 126-27.
38
353 U.S. 448 (1957).
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39
532 U.S. at 131. Although Stevens’ otherworldly coalition would have established a 6-5 majority, his attempt to expand the
category of Emeritus Justice beyond the grave was unsuccessful.
40
Id. at 133.
41
Id. at 134.
42
Id. at 137.
43
532 U.S. at 136.
44
Id. at 138.
45
Id at 138 n.2.
46
See 532 U.S. 105.
47
194 F.3d at 1071-72.
48
144 F.3d at 1185 (1998).
49
Id.
50
Id. at 1191 (quoting Pub.L. 102-66, § 118) (alteration in original).
51
Id. at 1192-93.
52
Id. at 1194.
53
Compare 2001 WL 867103, and 2001 WL 1218406, with Olivares v. Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., 2001 WL 477171 (C.D. Cal.
2001), and Eftekhari v. Peregrine Financials & Securities, Inc., 2001 WL 1180640 (N.D. Cal. 2001).
54
Compare 2001 WL 1105046, with 2001 WL 1153190.
55
See Borg-Warner Protective Services Corp. v. EEOC, 245 F.3d 831, 835 (D.C. Cir. 2001).
56
See Lindbergh Porter, Jr. et al., Alternative Dispute Resolution: Boosts form the Supreme Courts, But Risks for Over-reaching
Employers, 663 PLI/Lit 351 (2001) (recognizing the acute controversy regarding Duffield in CA); Gerald Spada et al., Arbitration
of Employment Disputes after Circuit City, 19 No. 7 ACCA Docket 40, (July/Aug. 2001) (noting that that in-house counsel
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cannot count on the enforceability of Title VII disputes in the Ninth Circuit); Mark S. Ross, Compulsory Arbitration of
Employment Disputes After Armendariz, 651 PLI/Lit 251 (2001) (identifying Duffield as the law in the Ninth Circuit despite the
California Supreme Court decision in Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc., 99 Cal. Rptr. 2d 745 (2000)).
57
See Melton v. Philip Morris, Inc., 2001 WL 1105046, at *3 (D. Or. 2001); Ferguson v. Countrywide Credit Indus., Inc., 2001 WL
867103, at *1 (C.D. Cal. 2001); Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Banyasz, 2001 WL 1218406, at *3 (N.D. Cal. 2001).
58
Duffield v. Robertson Stephens & Co., 114 F.3d 1182 (9th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 982 (1998).
59
Scott v. Burns Intern. Sec. Services, Inc., 165 F. Supp. 2d 1133 (D. Haw. 2001).
60
Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Ahmed, 121 S. Ct. 1399 (2001); Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Al-Safin, 121 S. Ct. 1399 (2001); Circuit
City Stores, Inc. v. Ingle, 121 S. Ct. 1399 (2001).
61
David A. Cathcart, Employment Termination Litigation: A 2001 Update, SF55 ALI-ABA 331, 385 (2001).
62
2002 WL 152986, at *2 (9th Cir. Feb. 4, 2002) (alteration in original).
63
99 Cal. Rptr. 2d. 745 (2000) (holding that a non-mutual agreement that employees arbitrate claims against their employer was
substantively unconscionable as a matter of California law).
64
See 2002 WL 152986.
65
Id. at *2.
66
Id. at *1.
67
Id. at *3.
68
2002 WL 152986, *3-4.
69
See, e.g., Seus v. John Nuveen & Co., 146 F.3d 175, 182 (3d Cir. 1998); Koveleskie v. SBC Capital Mkts., Inc., 167 F.3d 361,
365 (7th Cir. 1999); Desiderio v. Natinal Ass’n of Sec. Dealers, Inc., 191 F.3d 198, 205 (2d Cir. 1999); Rosenberg v. Merrill
Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 170 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 1999).
70
H.R. 2282, 107th Cong. (2001).
End of Document
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