Trujillo

INTRODUCTION

Stephnie Trujillo (respondent) filed a complaint against her former employer J-M Manufacturing Company (JMM) 1 and four former coworkers David Merritt, David Moore, David Christian, and Chuck Clark. After weeks of negotiating, the parties entered into a stipulation for arbitration, later signed as an order by the trial court. Court proceedings were stayed and the parties initiated arbitration in May 2021. JMM timely paid the arbitrator’s invoices for over a year. On October 18, 2022, the arbitrator contacted JMM and requested payment for the invoice with a due date of September 12, 2022. JMM immediately paid the invoice. Later that evening, Trujillo gave notice of her intent to withdraw from arbitration due to JMM’s late payment. She filed a motion to withdraw from arbitration pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure 2 section 1281.98, which the trial court granted. On appeal, JMM and the four coworkers (whom we collectively refer to as appellants) argue the trial court erred in ruling that section 1281.98 applied. Appellants contend the statute does not apply to them because: 1) they entered into a post-dispute stipulation to arbitrate with mutually agreed upon terms,…