Abdel-Latif v. Brookdale Employee Services, LLC
- Beth Freeman
- 5:23-cv-06372
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 8
In Abdel-Latif v. Brookdale Employee Services, LLC, Judge Freeman granted the motion in part and denied it in part, compelling arbitration and denying sanctions.
Nadia Abdel-Latif and the three Brookdale defendants are affected. Abdel-Latif’s employment-related claims were sent to arbitration for the arbitrator to address the agreement’s enforceability and applicability, while the federal litigation was stayed and administratively closed. The defendants’ request for sanctions was denied.
What happened
In Abdel-Latif v. Brookdale Employee Services, LLC, Nadia Abdel-Latif brought nine employment-related claims against Brookdale Employee Services, LLC, Brookdale Employee Services - Corporate, LLC, and Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc. The defendants asked the court to require arbitration and to impose sanctions.
Abdel-Latif argued that the arbitration agreement was unfair and could not be enforced, but she did not specifically challenge the agreement’s provision assigning enforceability disputes to an arbitrator. The defendants argued that the agreement was valid, covered her claims, and required arbitration.
Judge Freeman granted the motion in part and denied it in part: she granted the motion to compel arbitration, denied the motion for sanctions, stayed the litigation while arbitration proceeds, and ordered the clerk to administratively close the case.
The detailed version
- Abdel-Latif v. Brookdale Employee Services, LLC · No. 5:23-cv-06372
- Beth Freeman
- May 9, 2024
Background
Nadia Abdel-Latif brought nine employment-related claims against Brookdale Employee Services, LLC, Brookdale Employee Services - Corporate, LLC, and Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc. She worked for the defendants from approximately November 29, 2021, to August 11, 2023. On November 29, 2021, she signed Brookdale’s Dispute Resolution Agreement.
The agreement states that it is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, a federal law governing many arbitration agreements. It also states that disputes about the agreement’s interpretation, applicability, or enforceability—including whether all or part of the agreement is void or voidable—would be resolved by an arbitrator rather than by a court.
Abdel-Latif filed the action in state court on October 30, 2023, and the defendants removed it to federal court on December 11, 2023. The defendants moved to compel arbitration, dismiss or stay the case, and impose sanctions. Abdel-Latif opposed the motion.
Evidentiary Objection
Abdel-Latif objected to statements by a Brookdale human-resources employee, including a statement that Abdel-Latif received a copy of the agreement. The court sustained the objection to that statement because the defendants had not shown that the employee personally knew whether Abdel-Latif received the agreement. The court did not consider that statement. The court noted, however, that both sides attached the signed agreement to their filings and did not dispute that Abdel-Latif signed it on November 29, 2021.
Motion to Compel Arbitration
The court found that the agreement was authentic and a valid contract under California law. It found that the parties were capable of contracting, that Abdel-Latif consented by signing the agreement and other employment documents, that the agreement had a lawful objective, and that it was supported by consideration. The court also found that the Federal Arbitration Act governed the agreement because the agreement said it involved commerce and Brookdale operated senior living communities throughout the United States.
The defendants argued that the agreement clearly assigned disputes about its enforceability and applicability to the arbitrator. Abdel-Latif argued that the agreement as a whole was procedurally and substantively unconscionable, meaning unfair in how it was formed and in its terms. She did not specifically challenge the delegation provision—the provision assigning those disputes to the arbitrator.
The court held that the delegation provision clearly and unmistakably assigned enforceability and applicability questions to the arbitrator. Because Abdel-Latif challenged the agreement as a whole rather than the delegation provision specifically, the court treated the delegation provision as valid and did not decide her unconscionability challenges. The court therefore granted the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.
The defendants sought dismissal or a stay while arbitration proceeded. The court held that a stay was appropriate because the agreement’s enforceability remained unresolved. It stated that the case could return to the court if the arbitrator determined that the agreement was unenforceable or did not apply to all of Abdel-Latif’s claims.
Motion for Sanctions
The defendants also sought attorneys’ fees as sanctions for what they described as bad-faith conduct by Abdel-Latif in filing the lawsuit and refusing to arbitrate. The court denied the sanctions motion. It found that the motion was procedurally defective because it was filed together with the motion to compel arbitration rather than separately. The court also found that the defendants provided no substantive argument, legal basis, or evidence supporting their bad-faith allegations.
Disposition
The court stated that the defendants’ combined motion was GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. Specifically, the motion to compel arbitration was GRANTED, and the motion for sanctions was DENIED. The litigation was STAYED pending arbitration, the clerk was ordered to administratively close the case, arbitration was ordered to begin within 60 days of the order unless the parties filed a status report explaining why it had not begun, and the parties were ordered to file a joint status update after arbitration concluded.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.