Corey Rosen
Henny Penny employee cannot be forced to agree to arbitration clause
In Brown v. Wilmington Tr., N.A., No. 3:17-cv-00250 (S.D. Ohio, order denying defendant’s motion to compel arbitration 7/24/18), a district court ruled that a former employee cannot be forced to go through an arbitration clause regarding her ESOP account. The company set up its ESOP in 2014, and the employee was allocated shares. Two years later, the company adopted an arbitration clause for disputes over distributions. By then, the employee had left. The company and the ESOP trust, Wilmington Trust, wanted to enforce the arbitration clause, but the court ruled that she had never agreed to it because she had left the company by then and had cashed out her plan. The plaintiff is one of a class of employees suing over an alleged overvaluation of the stock.
