Franco v. Greystone Ridge Condominium

In March 2018, employees of defendant Greystone Ridge Condominium (Greystone), including plaintiff Victor M. Quiroz Franco (plaintiff), were presented with and asked to sign an agreement requiring that each employee agree to submit to final and binding arbitration “[a]ny and all claims . . . relating to any aspect of . . . employment with Employer (pre-hire through post-termination).”  About 10 days later, plaintiff filed a complaint against Greystone, C & A Services, John Stokke, and Maher A.A. Azer (defendants) asserting employment-related claims.  Two days after that, plaintiff signed the arbitration agreement and returned it to Greystone.  Defendants filed a motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff’s claims which plaintiff opposed on the ground the arbitration agreement failed to expressly state that claims that had already accrued, including the claims asserted in plaintiff’s complaint, were subject to arbitration.  The trial court agreed with plaintiff and denied the motion to compel arbitration.

We reverse.  The parties’ arbitration agreement is clear, explicit, and unequivocal with regard to the claims subject to it and contains no qualifying language limiting its applicability to claims that had yet to accrue.  On the contrary, the agreement’s reference to claims relating to “pre-hire” matters expresses an intent to cover all claims, regardless of when they accrued, that are not otherwise expressly excluded by the arbitration agreement. 

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