Cruise v. Kroger Co.
Annotate this CaseWhen Cruise applied for employment with Kroger in 2007, she completed an employment application, which contained a clause requiring arbitration of employment-related disputes and incorporating by reference Kroger’s Mediation & Binding Arbitration Policy. When Cruise sued, alleging employment discrimination, thel court denied Kroger’s motion to compel arbitration, ruling that Kroger failed to prove the existence of an arbitration agreement. The court was not persuaded the undated four-page arbitration policy attached to Kroger’s moving papers was extant at the time Cruise read and signed the employment application, and that it was the same Arbitration Policy to which the employment application referred. The court of appeal reversed. The arbitration clause in the employment application, standing alone, was sufficient to establish the parties agreed to arbitrate their employment-related disputes, and that Cruise’s claims against Kroger fall within the ambit of the arbitration agreement. The only impact of Kroger’s inability to establish the contents of the 2007 Arbitration Policy is that Kroger failed to establish the parties agreed to govern their arbitration by procedures different from those prescribed in the California Arbitration Act, so the arbitration will be governed by the CAA, rather than by the procedures set forth in the Arbitration Policy.
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