Ramos v. Westlake Services LLC

In July 2013, Alfredo Ramos (plaintiff) visited an automobile dealership. Ramos’s native language was Spanish, and the dealership’s employees conducted their negotiations with Ramos primarily in Spanish. Ramos agreed to purchase a vehicle. In addition, Ramos purchased a related insurance policy offered by Westlake Services LLC (Westlake) (defendant). Ramos did not receive a Spanish copy of the insurance policy, in alleged violation of California Civil Code § 1632. Ramos sued Westlake, which moved to compel arbitration. Westlake asserted that Ramos had agreed to arbitration as part of the underlying sales contract he had signed. The signed sales contract, which was in English, contained a broad arbitration clause that seemingly covered the insurance-policy dispute. In opposition to the motion, Ramos submitted his Spanish declaration, translated into English, and a Spanish-translated version of the sales contract that the dealership had provided him (the Ramos version). The Ramos version did not contain an arbitration clause. Ramos declared that he would not have signed an arbitration agreement had he known that the English version of the sales contract contained one and that there had been no discussion regarding arbitration during the parties’ negotiations. Ramos first learned about the arbitration requirement from his attorney. In reply, Westlake submitted a copy of a Spanish-translated version of the sales contract that included an arbitration agreement, but no one attested that Westlake’s version was the one Ramos had received. The trial court found that Ramos had been given the Ramos version and that Westlake had failed to establish the existence of an arbitration agreement. The court denied Westlake’s motion to compel arbitration, and Westlake appealed.