Chakraborty v. Hexaware Technologies, Inc.
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:24-cv-03458
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
In Chakraborty v. Hexaware, Judge Chhabria granted arbitration and stayed the case because the parties delegated arbitrability issues to the arbitrator.
Aparoop Chakraborty and Hexaware Technologies, Inc.; the dispute will proceed in arbitration rather than in court while this case is stayed.
What happened
In Chakraborty v. Hexaware Technologies, Inc., the dispute concerns whether the parties’ agreement requires arbitration. The agreement covers challenges involving arbitrability, validity, scope, enforceability, jurisdiction, and unconscionability.
The agreement also clearly assigns those threshold questions to the arbitrator. The court noted that Chakraborty did not argue that this delegation provision itself was unconscionable.
Judge Vince Chhabria granted Hexaware’s motion to compel arbitration and stayed the case while arbitration proceeds. The parties must file a joint status report every 120 days unless they instead agree to dismiss the case without prejudice under the conditions stated in the order.
The detailed version
- Chakraborty v. Hexaware Technologies, Inc. · No. 3:24-cv-03458
- Vince Chhabria
- Sept. 9, 2024
Background
Aparoop Chakraborty sued Hexaware Technologies, Inc. Hexaware asked the court to compel arbitration, meaning to require the dispute to be decided in arbitration rather than in court.
Court’s analysis
The arbitration provision states that disputes about arbitrability—the question of whether a dispute must be arbitrated—as well as the agreement’s validity, scope, enforceability, jurisdiction, and other threshold challenges must be submitted to arbitration. It specifically includes claims that the agreement is unconscionable, meaning unfairly one-sided or otherwise legally invalid.
The court found that this language clearly and unmistakably delegates threshold arbitrability issues, including unconscionability, to the arbitrator. The court also stated that Chakraborty had not argued that the delegation provision itself was unconscionable. Relying on Rent-A-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, the court concluded that the motion to compel had to be granted.
Ruling and case status
Judge Vince Chhabria granted Hexaware’s motion to compel arbitration and stayed the case pending arbitration. The parties must file a joint status report every 120 days until the arbitration ends.
The order also states that the parties may avoid that reporting obligation by stipulating to dismiss the action without prejudice, with Hexaware waiving any statute-of-limitations defense based on the period during which the dispute is before the arbitrator.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.