Angelica Ramirez v. Charter Communications, Inc.

When Charter Communications, Inc. (Charter) (defendant) hired Angelica Ramirez (plaintiff), she was required to sign an arbitration agreement drafted by Charter. The agreement required that employees waive their right to bring certain claims in court and instead submit them to Charter’s internal dispute system. Ramirez was terminated, and she sued Charter in state court for wrongful termination. Charter moved to compel Ramirez to litigate the matter in Charter’s system instead of the court. The trial court denied the motion, and Charter appealed. The court of appeal affirmed, finding four provisions in the arbitration agreement were substantively unconscionable. First, the agreement required employees to arbitrate most of their likely claims (e.g., wrongful termination, retaliation, harassment, wage-and-hour violations, and leave-law violations) but allowed Charter to use a court for its likely claims (e.g., employee contract violations, trade-secret theft, intellectual-property concerns, and collective-bargaining matters). Second, the agreement shortened an employee’s time to bring some claims. For example, a claim under a key state employment-discrimination law had to be filed with Charter’s system within one year, but the employee would have had three years to bring the same claim in court. Third, the agreement limited an employee’s access to discovery from Charter unless an arbitrator found additional discovery was warranted. Fourth, under the agreement, if a party challenged the agreement’s enforcement and the challenge failed for any reason, the challenger had to pay the other side’s attorney’s fees. The California Supreme Court agreed to review the matter.