The document’s text was so blurry and broken up that it was\u00a0nearly unreadable, described as \u201cvisually impenetrable\u201d to the point that it \u201cchallenges the limits of legibility.\u201d\u00a0The arbitration clause ran about 900 words in a single paragraph, with one sentence stretching 214 words. It cited six different statutes and referenced various government agencies without explanation. Fuentes signed it and received no copy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two and a half years later, Fuentes went on medical leave for cancer treatment. After a year, she requested a brief extension before returning to work. Empire Nissan\u00a0terminated\u00a0her employment instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Fuentes sued for wrongful termination, Empire Nissan moved to compel arbitration based on the signed agreement. The trial court refused, finding the agreement unconscionable. The judge noted that Fuentes never had a real chance to read or understand what she was signing. Even if she had tried during those five rushed minutes, the text was\u00a0nearly impossible\u00a0to decipher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An appeals court reversed, ruling that illegibility only matters for how an agreement gets signed, not whether the terms themselves are unfair. The appellate court directed the trial court to send the case to arbitration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0court disagreed and remanded the case for further consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The document’s text was so blurry and broken up that it was\u00a0nearly unreadable, described as \u201cvisually impenetrable\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[79332,7,79019,9,8,11049],"class_list":{"0":"post-163998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-arbitration-agreement","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-court","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-hiring"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}