Charter Call Center Suit Will Proceed Regardless of Arbitration Decision, Counsel Says
A class-action complaint by Charter Communications call center workers will go forward regardless of how U.S. District Court in Cleveland rules on a Charter motion to dismiss and compel arbitration involving just the named plaintiff in the complaint, we were…
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told Monday by Anthony Lazzaro of the Lazzaro Law Firm, counsel for named plaintiff Daylon Howard and the others. Lazzaro said that of the close to 50 workers represented in the suit, only Howard signed an arbitration agreement. In a memorandum (in Pacer) in support of its motion to dismiss and compel arbitration filed Friday in the federal court, Charter said opposition to the motion is based on arguments rejected by the court elsewhere and on inconsistent out-of-circuit authority. The suit was filed in November for unpaid pre-shift work such as the time spent logging into the call center computer system. Charter pointed to a 2016 decision by the Ohio court in a separate case which said Fair Labor Standards Act claims could be subject to arbitration, and arbitration agreements aren't invalid because employees are prohibited from collective or class-based arbitration. Opposition to Charter's motion largely relies on precedent outside the court and outside the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in direct contravention to the court's stated preference, the company said. It said the burden is on the plaintiffs to show individual arbitration is prohibitively expensive and that the arbitration agreement isn't substantively or procedurally unconscionable. Lazzaro said the Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year on the validity of class collective waivers, an issue over which U.S. Circuit courts are split, and that could have sizable implications for the litigation.