Dekker v. Vivint Solar, Inc.
- William Alsup
- 3:19-cv-07918
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Dekker v. Vivint Solar, Judge Alsup denied Vivint’s stay request, vacated deadlines, and allowed discovery after Vivint appealed an arbitration-default ruling.
Vivint Solar, Inc. and the plaintiffs involved in the federal proceedings, particularly Barajas, Rogers, Hulsey, Piini, and Hilliard, whose claims had returned to court after Vivint was held in default of arbitration.
What happened
In Dekker v. Vivint Solar, Inc., consumers sued Vivint over allegedly unfair practices involving solar-panel installations. After some claims were sent to arbitration, Vivint failed to timely pay its share of arbitration filing fees, and the court brought several plaintiffs back into the case.
Vivint asked the court to pause those proceedings while it appealed the order finding it in default of arbitration. The court denied the request because the case would not proceed to trial soon due to COVID-19, while discovery could still be useful in arbitration. The court vacated the remaining deadlines and directed the parties to negotiate the pace of discovery.
Judge William Alsup denied Vivint’s motion to stay, vacated the remaining deadlines, and scheduled another case-management conference for April 22, 2021. The order said Vivint could renew its request for a stay at that time.
The detailed version
- Dekker v. Vivint Solar, Inc. · No. 3:19-cv-07918
- William Alsup
- Sept. 15, 2020
Background
Plaintiffs sued Vivint Solar, Inc. and others over allegedly unfair business practices related to Vivint’s installation of solar-panel systems on consumers’ homes. In an earlier order, the court compelled most plaintiffs to arbitrate, declined to compel Bautista to arbitrate because a language barrier prevented contract formation, and denied Vivint’s separate motion to dismiss Dekker’s complaint.
After the relevant plaintiffs filed arbitration complaints, Vivint did not timely pay its share of the arbitration filing fees. The court then held Vivint in default and brought Barajas, Rogers, Hulsey, Piini, and Hilliard back into the federal case. Vivint appealed that order and asked the court to stay, or pause, the proceedings involving those plaintiffs.
Court’s Analysis
The court explained that a stay is discretionary rather than automatic. It considered whether Vivint was likely to succeed on appeal or had raised substantial legal questions, whether Vivint would suffer irreparable harm without a stay, whether a stay would substantially harm the opposing parties, and the public interest. The plaintiffs conceded that Vivint’s appeal raised serious legal questions, but the court concluded that the public interest did not favor a stay. Although public policy supports arbitration, it also supports parties’ performing their contractual obligations, including timely payment of arbitration filing fees.
The court also rejected Vivint’s argument that proceeding toward a February 2021 trial could waste time and resources if Vivint later prevailed on appeal. Because of COVID-19, the case could not proceed to trial for the foreseeable future. The court therefore found that the harm Vivint feared would not occur. At the same time, the plaintiffs would have to wait for relief if the case remained paused.
Order
The court denied Vivint’s motion to stay. It vacated all remaining deadlines, including the September 24 hearing, but did not simply pause the case. The court stated that discovery in federal court could be used in arbitration and committed the pace of discovery to the parties’ good-faith negotiations. It scheduled a further case-management conference for April 22, 2021, at 11:00 a.m., and stated that Vivint could renew its motion to stay then. Judge William Alsup signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.