McGrath v. Doordash, Inc.

Background

This case is a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act. More than 3,000 individuals had opted into the case, although the court had not issued a conditional-certification order that would result in formal notice to potential collective members.

The court had previously granted DoorDash’s motion to compel arbitration. That order required all individuals who had opted into the lawsuit to arbitrate their claims individually, except for a small number of people who had validly opted out of the arbitration agreement.

Motions

The plaintiffs asked for permission to file two supplemental exhibits in support of their motion for reconsideration. Exhibit A listed 96 individuals who were presented with the November 2019 Independent Contractor Agreement, including its arbitration provision, without notice to plaintiffs’ counsel. Exhibit B listed 45 individuals who had not yet opted into the case but whom plaintiffs’ counsel said it represented and who were presented with that agreement.

The court granted leave to file the exhibits because they did not present new legal arguments and therefore did not prejudice DoorDash.

The plaintiffs also asked the court to reconsider its earlier arbitration order. They argued that the court had failed to consider two points: first, that DoorDash rolled out the November 2019 agreement while the lawsuit was pending and without notifying plaintiffs’ counsel; and second, that the court ordered all opt-in plaintiffs to arbitration even though DoorDash’s motion had been filed before many people joined the case.

Court’s reasoning

The court ruled that the first argument had been waived. The plaintiffs knew about the November 2019 agreement and its arbitration provision by May 22, 2020, when DoorDash filed its motion to compel arbitration. They could have raised the argument in their opposition to that motion but did not. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that they could properly raise the argument later because DoorDash had filed a supplemental declaration. The court said that declaration did not raise a new legal argument, and the plaintiffs’ response to DoorDash’s administrative motion was filed after the applicable deadline.

Because the argument was waived, the court did not decide its merits. The court noted that it was not obvious that DoorDash had interfered with the administration of justice by introducing the November 2019 agreement without notifying plaintiffs’ counsel. It also stated that the agreement did not appear obviously misleading and that invalidating it would not necessarily eliminate arbitration because earlier agreements also contained arbitration provisions. The court noted that no one had asserted that a person who opted out of an earlier arbitration agreement was later improperly brought within the November 2019 agreement.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ second argument on the merits. The plaintiffs contended that the arbitration order improperly covered people who joined the case after DoorDash filed its motion, because those individuals had not been given an opportunity to respond. The court found that DoorDash had not limited its motion to a particular group of opt-in plaintiffs; instead, DoorDash had sought an order requiring individual arbitration of each opt-in plaintiff’s claims. The court further stated that there would not appear to be a due-process concern unless the plaintiffs could explain why people who joined after the motion was filed should be treated differently. The plaintiffs had not provided such a reason.

Disposition

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file supplemental exhibits and denied the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration. The earlier order compelling arbitration therefore remained in place. The order disposed of Docket No. 200; the opinion identifies Docket Nos. 200 and 206 as the docket numbers associated with the pending motions.