LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – Forgetting to initial part of an arbitration agreement doesn’t void it, a California court has ruled.
On July 8, the Second Appellate District said the lack of initials next to a jury waiver is “of no legal consequence.” An employee of BaronHR sought to invalidate the agreement, which sent any employment-related disputes to arbitration.
“(T)he language of the signed agreement is not ambiguous,” Justice Brian Currey wrote. “It is an objective expression of the parties’ mutual assent to arbitrate.”
Three separate terms of the agreement referenced the arbitration provision. The one that went un-initialed by both sides read: “In agreeing to arbitration, both Employer and Employee explicitly waive their respective rights to trial by jury.”
Martinez signed the agreement, then later claimed he didn’t want to. But his objections were never expressed and should not have been entered into evidence in the trial court, the appeals court said.