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Griffin v. United Health Care Services10/31/2005
olve their disputes by binding arbitration. It further concluded that, even assuming the plaintiffs assented to "the arbitration agreement," the agreement was procedurally and substantively unconscionable. It therefore denied defendants' petition to compel arbitration.
DISCUSSION
Standard of Review
Appellate courts apply general California contract law to determine whether the parties formed a valid agreement to arbitrate. (CPI Builders, Inc. v. Impco Technologies, Inc. (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 1167, 1171 (CPI Builders).) If the trial court's ruling depended on resolution of disputed facts, we must accept the trial court's resolution of those facts if supported by substantial evidence, presuming the court found every fact and drew every permissible inference necessary to support its order and deferring to its determination of the credibility of witnesses and the weight of the evidence. (NORCAL Mutual Ins. Co. v. Newton (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 64, 71.) However, if there was no evidence extrinsic to the agreement, or no conflict in the extrinsic evidence, or the conflicting evidence is entirely written, the appellate court is not bound by the trial court's findings but conducts a de novo review of the agreement. (Fitz v. NCR Corp. (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 702, 711; CPI Builders, supra, 94 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1171-1172.)
Insofar as the extrinsic evidence here is entirely in the form of written declarations, we conduct an independent review to determine whether the parties agreed to arbitrate disputes.
No Valid Agreement between Parties to Arbitrate
Code of Civil Procedure section 1281.2 provides that, on a petition to compel arbitration based on the alleged existence of a written agreement to arbitrate, the court shall order the petitioner and respondent to arbitrate their controversy "if it determines that an agreement to arbitrate the controversy exists." Thus, a petition to compel arbitration is in essence a suit in equity that seeks specific performance of that agreement. (Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Co. v. Hock Investment Co. (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 83, 88-89.) When a court is asked to compel arbitration, its first task is to determine whether the parties have in fact agreed to arbitrate. (Ibid.) "Because the existence of the agreement is a statutory prerequisite to granting the petition, the petitioner bears the burden of proving its existence by a preponderance of the evidence." (Rosenthal v. Great Western Fin. Securities Corp. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 394, 413 (Rosenthal).)
Defendants contend plaintiffs agreed to arbitration by signing the Code of Conduct Acknowledgement, which states they acknowledge receiving the employee handbook, and specifically acknowledge receiving and reviewing section A5 of the handbook, which governs internal dispute resolution and Employment Arbitration Policy, and "agree to submit all employment related disputes based on a legal claim to arbitration under [United HealthCare's] policy." They also note that all plaintiffs except Underwood signed other documents that refer to United HealthCare's mandatory Employment Arbitration Policy.
General California contract law requires words to be understood in their ordinary and popular sense, unless a special meaning is to be given them by usage. (Civ. Code, ยง 1644.) In their petition to compel arbitration, defendants identify their exhibit one, the March 1, 2002 "Employment Arbitration Policy," as the "operative arbitration agreement" on which they base their right to arbitrate. Exhibit one refers to itself as the "Policy" in its text. It specifies that "This Policy supersedes any and all prior versions and has been revised effe
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