Case Details and Video Transcript:

 Filed 5/17/24 

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT 

DIVISION THREE ISABEL GARCIA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. STONELEDGE FURNITURE LLC et al., Defendants and Appellants.

A166785 (Sonoma County Super. Ct. No. SCV269300)

Employee, Isabel Garcia, filed a sexual harassment suit against her employer, Stoneledge Furniture. The employer filed a petition to compel arbitration arguing that Garcia had electronically signed an arbitration agreement during the onboarding process. Garcia, however, denied signing.

The trial court denied the employer’s petition to compel arbitration. It found that while the employer had initially shown that such an agreement existed, Garcia’s denial that the signature was hers, shifted the burden back to the employer to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the signature was Garcia’s. The court found that the employer failed to meet this burden as the declaration submitted did not contain enough details about the onboarding process to establish how Garcia must have signed it, nor did the agreement appear to be an electronically signed contract formed in the third-party platform used by employer.

The employer appealed arguing that (a) the issue should have been decided by an arbitrator, not the trial court, and (b) that the employer had met its burden of proving that the signature was authentic.

The appellate court upheld the trial court’s ruling, holding that (a) it was proper for the trial court to decide the issue rather than an arbitrator as it had not been established that an arbitration agreement existed in the first place; and (b) the employer did not show that only Garcia could have placed the signature.

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