Cooperate or Pay: Recovering Attorneys’ Fees to Get to ArbitrationDoes your arbitration agreement allow you to recover attorneys’ fees if the employee rebels against arbitration and you have to compel it? Maybe it should. In Aralar v. Scott McRea Automotive Group, a court in Florida recently affirmed an arbitrator’s award of nearly $20,000 in attorney’s fees for the defendant’s hassle of moving for arbitration. Employers with arbitration agreements should be encouraged that the fees incurred for moving for arbitration (when it should be clear cut) may be recoverable with the contract clause.

The Facts and the Arbitration Clause

Aralar worked in the McRea auto service center and filed a lawsuit in court under the FLSA for unpaid overtime and back wages. Pursuant to an arbitration agreement Aralar signed as a condition of employment, McRea notified Aralar’s counsel multiple times that he could not pursue the matter in court — it had to go to arbitration.

The arbitration clause provided that if one of the parties filed an action in court that was subject to arbitration, the other party would provide notice of the arbitration requirement and request to have the case dismissed. If the party who filed the court action did not dismiss the case within 10 days and the case ultimately ended up in arbitration following a motion, the moving party could recover reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred “because of the filing of the complaint.”

Aralar did not respond, and McRae filed a motion to dismiss the case and compel arbitration. Yet again Aralar failed to respond, although he eventually agreed to the arbitration forum about six weeks after it was filed. The court then compelled the matter to arbitration and stayed the case pending the results. Aralar did not end up filing his request for arbitration for another six months after the court’s ruling.

About a year later, the arbitrator granted McRae’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, finding that Aralar’s job as a service advisor was exempt from FLSA requirements. A few months later, the arbitrator awarded McRae the fees and costs incurred up through the time the case was stayed by the court, a sum totaling $19,291.58. The fees and costs awarded were about half of the amount requested.

After no further response was received from Aralar, McRae filed a motion with the court to confirm the arbitration award. Aralar finally woke up and filed to vacate the attorneys’ fee award.

The Court’s Decision

In his ruling, the judge conveyed that any party seeking to vacate an arbitrator’s findings must clear a high hurdle because federal courts defer to an arbitrator’s decisions whenever possible. Then the judge said the same standard applies for award of attorneys’ fees. Aralar contended that (1) fees should only be awarded as a sanction, and (2) that because his FLSA claim was not frivolous, the awarding of fees was inappropriate based on rulings in civil rights cases. The judge rejected those contentions and found that because the parties contractually agreed to the arbitration agreement’s fee shifting provision and Aralar did not withdraw his lawsuit within 10 days of notice, McRae was entitled to enforce the contract terms and recover the fees incurred to get the matter into arbitration.

Takeaways

The decision makes sense and these fee shifting clauses could be a useful tool to avoid fights about arbitration. Where the employer has to have its attorneys compel a matter into arbitration when the employee should have agreed to it, that unnecessary expense should come out of the plaintiff’s pocket. Employers should find some small encouragement that fee recovery provisions will be enforced. At the very least, the Aralar decision provides leverage towards peaceful agreements into arbitration rather than a fight. No plaintiff wants to pay a former employer—especially when they filed a lawsuit to try and get money.