{"id":1110,"date":"2015-12-24T11:17:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T16:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events.lindabury.com\/?p=1110"},"modified":"2016-06-02T14:03:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T18:03:27","slug":"court-strikes-arbitration-agreement-employer-handbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/court-strikes-arbitration-agreement-employer-handbook.html","title":{"rendered":"Court Strikes Down Arbitration Agreement in Employer Handbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent decision from the New Jersey Appellate Division serves as a warning to employers that arbitration clauses contained in employee handbooks are likely unenforceable.\u00a0 In C.M. v. Maiden Re Insurance Services, LLC<\/em>, (\u201cMaiden Re\u201d), the employee filed an action in the New Jersey Superior Court alleging that she was wrongfully terminated by Maiden Re for seeking a reasonable accommodation to her disability in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.\u00a0 Maiden Re moved to dismiss the Complaint and instead compel the employee to resolve the dispute before an arbitrator pursuant to the arbitration clause contained Maiden Re\u2019s employee handbook.\u00a0 The Trial Court granted Maiden Re\u2019s motion, sending the matter to arbitration.\u00a0\u00a0 On appeal, the Appellate Division refused to enforce the employee handbook\u2019s arbitration clause and remanded the matter back to the Trial Court for resolution of the discrimination claim.<\/p>\n

Handbook Disclaimer Renders Agreement to Arbitrate Unenforceable:<\/strong><\/span> Like most employee handbooks, Maiden Re\u2019s handbook contained a contractual disclaimer specifically providing that its terms and conditions, \u201cshould be regarded as management guidelines only\u2026\u201d and were \u201cnot intended to create contractual obligations\u2026\u201d nor \u201cintended to create a contract\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The inclusion of the contractual disclaimer proved fatal to Maiden Re\u2019s efforts to compel the employee to arbitrate her claims.\u00a0\u00a0 The Appellate Division reasoned that Maiden Re \u201ccannot selectively disavow the [disclaimer] language in the handbook to insulate the “arbitration” provision from the legal consequences of the disclaimer provision<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court also questioned whether the employees\u2019 electronic acknowledgement of the handbook that failed to include language indicating that the employee was waving her right to adjudicate employment disputes in a judicial forum, was sufficient evidence of an \u201dunambiguous intention\u201d to arbitrate statutory claims.\u00a0 The court noted that it did not need to rule on the issue because the disclaimer rendered the arbitration provision unenforceable.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Employers seeking to enter into enforceable arbitration agreements with employees must do so by way of a stand-alone agreement that is signed by the employee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,247],"tags":[],"coauthors":[214],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-labor-employment-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCourt Strikes Down Arbitration Agreement in Employer Handbook — December 24, 2015 — Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. Firm News & Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Employers seeking to enter into enforceable arbitration agreements with employees must do so by way of a stand-alone agreement that is signed by the employee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/court-strikes-arbitration-agreement-employer-handbook.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court Strikes Down Arbitration Agreement in Employer Handbook — December 24, 2015 — Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. 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