Velarde

STATEMENT OF FACTS

Prior to starting her employment at Newport Healthcare, Velarde worked as a customer service agent for Air Tahiti. However, she was laid off in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was unemployed for nine months until Newport Healthcare agreed to hire her as a care coordinator. Newport Healthcare required Velarde to attend an orientation scheduled for her first day of work. Upon arriving at Newport Healthcare’s office, Velarde was escorted to a large conference room where she waited until an HR manager arrived. The HR manager presented Velarde with “a stack of [31] documents and told [her she] was required to complete the forms before [she] could start working.” The HR manager told her, ‘“we gotta get through [these to] get you onboard. We’ll try to get through them as fast as possible.”’ Velarde “felt pressured to fill out the forms quickly, since [the HR manager] was waiting for [her] . . . .” One of the documents was an arbitration agreement, which Velarde refused to sign because she “did not understand what it was.” Velarde told the HR manager that because she did not understand what it was, she did not feel comfortable signing it. The HR manager…