RIVERA, INDIVIDUALLY, AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED vs REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC

25CV146208: RIVERA, INDIVIDUALLY, AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED vs REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC, A DELAWARE LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Arbitration filed by REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (Defendant) CRS# 222965176352 in Department 512

Tentative Ruling - 07/09/2026 Elizabeth Riles

The Hearing on Motion to Compel Arbitration filed by REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (Defendant) CRS# 222965176352 scheduled for 07/09/2026 is continued to 07/14/2026 at 02:30 PM in Department 512 at Hayward Hall of Justice.

The Court CONTINUES the hearing on defendant Remington Lodging & Hospitality, LLC’s (“Defendant”) Motion to Compel Arbitration to Tuesday, 7/14/2026 at 2:30 p.m. in Dept. 512.

At the continued 7/14/2026 hearing the parties should be prepared to discuss dates on which their respective witnesses may be examined regarding formation of the at-issue Arbitration Agreement acknowledged by Plaintiff on or about 10/19/2024.

Plaintiff Fatima Lozano Rivera (“Plaintiff”) alleges wage and hour class action and PAGA claims in her action.

The evidence presently before the Court indicates that Plaintiff began working for Defendant in 2022, but that in October 2024, Defendant required Plaintiff to undergo an onboarding process, where she provided tax and citizenship documents, as well as reviewing and acknowledging nineteen (19) separate policies of Defendant, some of which policies were dozens of pages long. (Lozano Rivera Dec. Para. 8.) One of those 19 policies was the arbitration agreement. She declares that Spanish is her primary language, she cannot read English well or with comprehension, she does not recall seeing an arbitration agreement among the 19 policies she reviewed, and all of the documents she was provided to review were solely in English.

This last point is a disputed issue of material fact, because the moving Miller Declaration creates a reasonable inference that the copy of the arbitration agreement Plaintiff and other employees reviewed in October 2024 were provided in both English and Spanish.

Although Plaintiff was apparently at work when she was instructed to commence the onboarding process and she used a work computer to create a username and login, she declares that she later logged into the ADP system from her personal cellphone to complete the process. (Lozano Rivera Dec. ¶ 7.) This may or may not indicate that Plaintiff had sufficient time to review and seek information regarding the documents before acknowledging them and wasn't under time pressure to complete the on-boarding process.

There is also no information in Plaintiff's declaration regarding whether she asked questions about the documents she was acknowledging or requested copies in Spanish. She does declare, however, that in January 2026, when Plaintiff had raised issues about her employment, her supervisor called her into his office 25CV146208: RIVERA, INDIVIDUALLY, AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED vs REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC, A DELAWARE LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY 07/09/2026 Hearing on Motion to Compel Arbitration filed by REMINGTON LODGING & HOSPITALITY, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (Defendant) CRS# 222965176352 in Department 512 and told her she needed to sign a Spanish copy of the Arbitration Agreement because the supervisor said, Plaintiff had only signed/acknowledged an English version of the Agreement which she might have understood. (Id. at ¶ 12.)

The Arbitration Agreement is an adhesion contract, which the law considers to constitute “modest” procedural unconscionability. (Nguyen v. Applied Med. Res. Corp. (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 232, 248.) However, Plaintiff's declaration suggests the possibility of greater unfair surprise in that she was provided with many on-boarding tasks all at once and given a great number of policies to review, which may have all been in English, a language she contends she does not read with comprehension.

The Court finds that there is some degree of substantive unconscionability in terms of its breadth and its lack of mutuality. The arbitration agreement makes all disputes between the parties subject to arbitration and not just those claims arising out of Plaintiff’s application for employment, employment and termination of employment. Further, the Arbitration Agreement is not bounded in time to the employment relationship or claims arising thereunder. Finally, the Arbitration Agreement lacks mutuality because it requires Plaintiff to arbitrate any claims she may have against a number of affiliated persons and entities of Defendant. but these affiliated persons and entities are not required to arbitrate any claims they may have against Plaintiff. (See Cook v.

University of Southern California (2024) 102 Cal.App.5th 312; Stoker v. Blue Origin, LLC (2026) 120 Cal.App.5th 91.) However, the at-issue Arbitration Agreement is at least somewhat less substantively unconscionable than the agreements in Cook or Stoker, supra. (See Ayala-Ventura v. Sup.Ct. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 241, distinguishing the contract language therein from that in Cook.)

Further, these defects could be severed from the Arbitration Agreement, where the current dispute is brought solely against Defendant and regards disputes arising directly out of the employment relationship, specifically Defendant’s alleged wage and hour violations that effected Plaintiff and other similarly situated employees.

Whether the Court should sever the substantively unconscionable terms identified above is related the level of procedural unconscionability in contract formation, because the Court weighs procedural and substantive unconscionability on a sliding scale, once some degree of each is found. (Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services Inc. (2000) 24 Cal. 4th 83, 114.)

Therefore, the Court deems it appropriate to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine the level of procedural unconscionability based on the circumstances raised by Plaintiff in Opposition.