Fourth DCA Upholds Mandatory Arbitration Policy
Florida law generally favors agreements to arbitrate, and a recent decision by the Fourth District Court of Appeals illustrates this principle. In United Healthcare of Florida v. Brown (Case No. 4D07-4539, 4th DCA, June 4, 2008) (which you can find here), the court held that an employee was bound to arbitrate her employment-related claim (the opinion does not state what her claim was), because in 2000 she had signed her employer's Internal Dispute Resolution/Employment Arbitration Policy. The policy, which had been implemented in 1999, required the employee to "resolve all employment-related disputes which are based on a legal claim through final and binding arbitration." Interestingly, in 2002 the employer implemented a new, but similar, arbitration policy, which the employee did not sign. Nevertheless, the Fourth DCA, evincing the judicial preference to enforce arbitration agreements, held that, having signed a 2000 acknowledgment that incorporated the 1999 arbitration policy, the employee was estopped from denying the validity of the new agreement.
Whether mandatory arbitration of employment-related claims is a good thing for employers is a debatable issue which I will address in future posts. In the meantime, be advised that employers cannot require employees to sign an arbitration policy that would cover a pending EEOC charge. An employee's refusal to sign an arbitration policy under these facts is protected activity, according to a January 2008 decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Goldsmith v. Bagby Elevator, Case No. 06-14440 (11th Cir., January 17, 2008).
