Carmona

FACTS AND PROCEDURE

1. The Agreement Each plaintiff signed an employment agreement containing an arbitration clause. The agreements contain between four and six pages, depending on the plaintiff. The pertinent portions of each plaintiff’s agreement are identical. The agreements contain the following arbitration clause, which was initialed by the plaintiffs: “Settlement by Arbitration Any dispute under or out of or regarding any aspect of employee’s employment, including its information, or any act which would violate any provision in this employment contract, shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration by an experienced licensed [sic] to practice law in California and selected in accordance with the expedited Employment Dispute rules of the American Arbitration Association in effect at the time of such dispute, pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act. Judgment will be on any award by arbitrator’s by [sic] in any court having jurisdiction.”1

1 The employment agreements contain numerous apparent errors such that they are unnecessarily confusing at points, as may become clear in the excerpts we quote. For instance, there appears to be an omitted word in…