Berland v. X Corp.
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 3:24-cv-07589
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Berland v. X Corp., Judge Corley denied certification to proceed during Defendants’ appeal and stayed Plaintiff’s state-law claims.
The ruling affects Leslie Berland and the defendants by keeping the state-law claims stayed during Defendants’ appeal; the ERISA claims were not stayed.
What happened
In Leslie Berland v. X Corp., Defendants appealed the Court’s earlier denial of their request to force arbitration of Plaintiff’s state-law claims. Plaintiff asked the Court to declare that appeal frivolous or waived and to continue handling those claims while the appeal proceeded.
The Court concluded that Defendants’ appeal was not frivolous because their arguments, although unpersuasive, were not wholly without merit or obviously wrong. The Court also rejected Plaintiff’s argument that Defendants had waived their right to appeal by waiting too long; the relevant waiver concerns the right to obtain an appellate decision before trial, not the separate right to seek arbitration.
Judge Corley denied Plaintiff’s motion for a certification under Chuman v. Wright. The Court stayed Plaintiff’s state-law claims while the appeal is pending, but Plaintiff’s claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act were not stayed, so the scheduled case-management conference remained on calendar.
The detailed version
- Berland v. X Corp. · No. 3:24-cv-07589
- Jacquelyn Corley
- Nov. 10, 2025
Background
Leslie Berland brought four claims against X Corp., successor in interest to Twitter, Inc., and other defendants: two claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), one for plan benefits and one alleging unlawful discharge to interfere with the right to plan benefits; breach of contract; and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
Defendants asked the Court to compel arbitration of the contract and implied-covenant claims. The Court previously denied that request after concluding that forum-selection clauses in Berland’s later Award Agreements superseded an arbitration provision in a 2016 Dispute Resolution Agreement. Defendants appealed that denial.
Plaintiff then moved for a written certification under Chuman v. Wright stating that Defendants’ appeal was frivolous or waived, and asked the Court to retain control over the state-law claims while the appeal proceeded.
Analysis
The Court explained that an appeal from an order concerning whether claims must be arbitrated generally removes the appealed issues from the district court’s control and requires the district court to stay its proceedings concerning those issues. Ninth Circuit precedent permits a district court to certify that an interlocutory appeal is frivolous or waived, allowing the case to proceed despite the appeal.
The Court declined to reject Plaintiff’s motion solely because the Court had not found a prior example involving an appeal from denial of a motion to compel arbitration. It concluded, however, that Defendants’ appeal was not frivolous. Although the Court was not persuaded by Defendants’ efforts to distinguish the relevant precedent or reconcile the agreements in a way that would require arbitration, Defendants’ arguments were not wholly without merit or obviously wrong.
The Court also rejected Plaintiff’s waiver argument. It explained that the waiver discussed in Chuman concerns forfeiting the right to obtain an appellate decision before trial by waiting too long to appeal. That concept is different from waiving the right to compel arbitration in the district court. The Court further noted that it had not ruled on Plaintiff’s argument that Defendants waived their right to compel arbitration, so that issue was not part of the appeal.
Disposition
The Court vacated the November 20, 2025 hearing and denied Plaintiff’s motion for a Chuman certification. The Court stayed Plaintiff’s state-law claims pending the Ninth Circuit’s decision. Plaintiff’s ERISA claims were not stayed, and the November 20, 2025 case-management conference remained scheduled. The order disposed of Docket No. 81.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.