IAMCO

Plaintiff franchise owners, both individuals and their professional association, Independent Association of Mailbox Center Owners, Inc. (IAMCO), et al. (collectively the franchisees or plaintiffs), brought a complaint raising numerous statutory and common law claims to challenge the conversion of their stores into a new format, “The UPS Store” system, created by defendant Mail Boxes Etc., USA, Inc., et al. (MBE). Following trial court rulings that their claims against MBE, their franchisor, must be arbitrated on an individual basis, and not on a classwide or group basis, the franchisees filed this writ petition challenging the denial of their consolidation motion and related rulings that declined to shift all arbitration costs to MBE and imposed a stay as to certain franchisees.

The subject franchise agreements and their arbitration and/or mediation clauses fall into three main groups: Those governed by the rules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA, covering 17 of the petitioners); those governed by the rules of JAMS (Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, covering 11 petitioners); and those governed by mediation clauses rather than any arbitration…