Sandquist

INTRODUCTION

In this class action, plaintiff Timothy Sandquist purports to appeal from the trial court’s August 14, 2012 order granting defendants’ motion to compel him to arbitrate his individual claims, as well as defendants’ motion to dismiss all class claims without prejudice. Although this order is not appealable, we liberally construe Sandquist’s notice of appeal to include the trial court’s October 5, 2012 order dismissing his class claims with prejudice, which is appealable under the death knell doctrine. Limiting our review to Sandquist’s challenges to the order dismissing the class claims, we agree with Sandquist that the trial court erred by deciding the issue whether the parties agreed to class arbitration, and that the court should have submitted the issue to the arbitrator. Therefore, we reverse.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Sandquist began working in sales at Manhattan Beach Toyota in September 2000. Joel Rabe, Sandquist’s sales floor manager, provided Sandquist with a large amount of paperwork to fill out but did not discuss any of the documents with him. Rabe simply told Sandquist to complete the paperwork quickly so he could get out onto the sales floor.…