Garden Fresh Restaurant Corp. v. Super. Ct.
Annotate this CaseReal party in interest Alicia Moreno sued her former employer petitioner Garden Fresh Restaurant Corporation for claims related to a variety of alleged Labor Code violations. Moreno filed the action as a putative class action, and also pursued representative relief under the Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA). Garden Fresh moved to compel arbitration of Moreno's claims, on an individual basis only, based on two arbitration agreements that Moreno signed during her tenure as an employee of Garden Fresh. Garden Fresh requested that the court dismiss Moreno's class and representative claims, arguing that the parties' arbitration agreements did not contemplate class- or representative-based arbitration. The trial court granted the motion to compel arbitration, but specifically left to the arbitrator to decide the question whether the arbitration agreements between the parties contemplated classwide and/or representative arbitration, thereby denying Garden Fresh's request that only Moreno's individual claims be sent to arbitration. Garden Fresh filed a petition for a writ of mandate to the Court of Appeal, presenting one issue: who decides whether an agreement to arbitrate disputes between the parties to the agreement authorizes class and/or representative arbitration when the contract is silent on the matter - the arbitrator or the court? The Court concluded that the question whether an arbitration agreement permits class and/or representative arbitration was a gateway issue, and thus reserved " 'for judicial determination [u]nless the parties clearly and unmistakably provide otherwise.' " The Court granted the request for a writ of mandate to direct the trial court: (1) to vacate that portion of its order leaving it to the arbitrator to determine whether the parties agreed to class and/or representative arbitration; (2) to conduct further proceedings as necessary to determine whether the parties' arbitration agreement contemplates class and/or representative arbitration, and whether the plaintiff's representative PAGA claims may be arbitrated, or rather, whether that claim should be bifurcated; and (3) to enter a new order setting forth the court's determination as to these issues.
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