Abdullayeva v. Attending Homecare Servs. LLC, 18-0651

• Decision Date: 02 July 2019
• Docket Number: August Term 2018,No. 18-0651,18-0651
• Citation: 928 F.3d 218
• Parties: Tatyana ABDULLAYEVA, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ATTENDING HOMECARE SERVICES LLC, dba Attending Home Care Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

928 F.3d 218

Tatyana ABDULLAYEVA, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.ATTENDING HOMECARE SERVICES LLC, dba Attending Home Care Defendant-Appellant.

No. 18-0651

August Term 2018

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: February 19, 2019

Decided: July 2, 2019

For Plaintiff-appellee: Steven L. Wittels, Tiasha Palikovic, Wittels Law, P.C., Armonk, NY.

For Defendant-appellant: Daniel Gomez-sanchez, Lisa M. Griffith, Ira D. Wincott, Littler Mendelson, P.C., Melville, NY.

Before: Walker and Livingston, Circuit Judges, and Failla, District Judge.¹

Debra Ann Livingston, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Attending Homecare Services LLC ("Attending") appeals from a March 5, 2018 Memorandum and Order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Weinstein, J .), denying Attending’s motion to compel arbitration. On appeal, Attending argues that the district court erred in determining that (1) the arbitration clause in the collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") permitted, rather than mandated, arbitration; and (2) the arbitration clause denied due process to Attending’s employees. We conclude that the arbitration clause (1) mandated arbitration of the claims at issue here; and (2) did not deny due process to Attending’s employees. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court.

BACKGROUND

Attending is a home health care provider operating in the greater New York City area. Attending’s large professional staff of health and personal care workers provides home assistance to otherwise-independent elderly New Yorkers. Plaintiff-Appellee Tatyana Abdullayeva ("Abdullayeva") is one of those workers and has been since October 2014.

As a condition of her employment, Abdullayeva—like all of Attending’s home care workers—was required to join the Home Healthcare Workers of America. She became a member of the Local 1660 chapter ("the Union") on April 13, 2016. At around the same time, the Union and Attending reached agreement on the CBA. The CBA was the result of an extended negotiation process and set out detailed terms governing the relationship between and among Attending, its workers, and the Union. The CBA became binding on Attending’s workers on its effective date, May 1, 2016, and remained so until April 30, 2019.

On April 27, 2017, a year after the initial agreement, the Union and Attending negotiated an amendment to Article 8 of the CBA, which is entitled "Adjustment of Disputes." As amended, Article 8(B) reads, in relevant part:

B. The parties [the Union and Attending] further agree a goal of this Agreement is to ensure compliance with all federal, state, and local wage hour law and wage parity statutes. Accordingly, to ensure the uniform administration and interpretation of this Agreement in connection with federal, state, and local wage-hour and wage parity statutes, all claims brought by either the Union or Employees , asserting violations of or arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act ..., New York Home Care Worker Wage Parity Law, or New York Labor Law (collectively, the "Covered Statutes"), in any manner, shall be subject exclusively, to the grievance and arbitration procedures described below .

1) The statute of limitations to file a grievance concerning the Covered Statutes shall be consistent with the applicable statutory statute of limitations. All such claims if not resolved in the grievance procedure, including class grievances filed by the Union, or mediation as described below shall be submitted to final and binding arbitration before Elliott Shriftman. ...

....

4) In the event an Employee has requested, in writing, that the Union process a grievance alleging a violation of the Covered Statutes and the Union declines to process a grievance regarding alleged violations of the Covered Statutes, through the grievance/mediation process or to arbitration following the conclusion of mediation, an Employee solely on behalf of himself/herself, may submit their individual claim to mediation, or following the conclusion of mediation, to arbitration. ...

A-52–53 (emphases added).

In October 2017, on behalf of herself and all similarly situated employees, Abdullayeva filed suit against Attending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She alleged that Attending had, inter alia , willfully failed to pay its workers overtime and spread-of-hours pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") and New York Labor Law ("NYLL"). In the alternative, Abdullayeva alleged unjust enrichment. Attending responded by moving to compel arbitration, arguing that Article 8(B) mandated arbitration of claims like Abdullayeva’s and thus barred her from seeking relief in federal court.

On March 5, 2018, the district court (Weinstein, J .) denied Attending’s motion and held that the CBA did not bar Abdullayeva from bringing her FLSA and NYLL claims in federal court. The district court first concluded that the CBA violated Abdullayeva’s due process rights because the arbitrator had been preselected by the Union and Attending without any input from Abdullayeva. The court then interpreted Article 8(B) to render arbitration of Abdullayeva’s claims permissive rather than mandatory. More specifically, the court determined that Article 8(B)(4), in particular, is "at best ambiguous," and does not satisfy the "clear and unmistakable" test applicable to the assessment of purported waivers of union members’ right to bring statutory claims in court when such waivers are part of a collective bargaining agreement’s arbitration provisions.

Attending timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

I

We review de novo a determination whether parties have contractually bound themselves to arbitrate a dispute. See Local 348-S v. Meridian Mgmt. Corp. , 583 F.3d 65, 68 (2d Cir. 2009). In doing so, we apply a "standard similar to that applicable for a motion for summary judgment," drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Nicosia v. Amazon.com, Inc. , 834 F.3d 220, 229 (2d Cir. 2016) (quoting Bensadoun v. Jobe-Riat , 316 F.3d 171, 175 (2d Cir. 2003) ). We ordinarily answer four questions in this inquiry: (1) whether the parties agreed to arbitrate; (2) the "scope" of the arbitration agreement; (3) whether the plaintiff’s federal statutory claims are "nonarbitrable"; and (4) if some, but not all of the claims in the case are arbitrable, whether to stay the balance of the proceedings pending arbitration. JLM Industries, Inc. v. Stolt-Nielsen SA , 387 F.3d 163, 169 (2d Cir. 2004). Only the first two questions are at issue in this case.²

In answering the first question—whether the parties agreed to arbitrate—we look to "state contract law principles." Nicosia , 834 F.3d at 229 ; see also M&G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett , ––– U.S. ––––, 135 S. Ct. 926, 933, 190 L.Ed.2d 809 (2015) ("We interpret collective-bargaining agreements ... according to ordinary principles of contract law ...."). Under governing New York law, agreements must be "construed in accord with the parties’ intent." Greenfield v. Philles Records, Inc. , 98 N.Y.2d 562, 569, 750 N.Y.S.2d 565, 780 N.E.2d 166 (2002). The terms of an agreement provide the best evidence of what the parties intend, and "a written agreement that is complete, clear[,] and unambiguous on its face must be enforced according to the plain meaning of its terms." See id. Furthermore, "we do not consider particular phrases in isolation, but rather interpret them in light of the parties’ intent as manifested by the contract as a whole." Gary Friedrich Enterps., LLC v. Marvel Characters, Inc. , 716 F.3d 302, 313 (2d Cir. 2013).

As to the second question, the scope of the arbitration agreement, we normally resolve "any doubts ... in favor of arbitration." Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp. , 460 U.S. 1, 24–25, 103 S.Ct. 927, 74 L.Ed.2d 765 (1983). This presumption in favor of arbitrability comes from the Federal Arbitration Act, which "direct[s] courts to abandon their hostility" toward arbitration and to instead "respect and enforce agreements to arbitrate." Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1612, 1621, 200 L.Ed.2d 889 (2018). However, an exception to the scope presumption applies in the context of a union’s waiver of its members’ right to bring statutory claims in court. The Supreme Court has held that a union can , on behalf of its members, "agree to the inclusion of an arbitration provision in a collective-bargaining agreement," 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett , 556 U.S. 247, 274, 129 S.Ct. 1456, 173 L.Ed.2d 398 (2009), even one that mandates arbitration of FLSA claims, see Epic Sys. Corp. , 138 S. Ct. at 1626–27. But such waivers of union members’ right to bring claims in court "must be ‘clear and unmistakable.’ " Lawrence v. Sol G. Atlas Realty Co., Inc. , 841 F.3d 81, 82 (2d Cir. 2016) (quoting Wright v. Universal Mar. Serv. Corp. , 525 U.S. 70, 79–80, 119 S.Ct. 391, 142 L.Ed.2d 361 (1998) ).

At this point, we must clarify an item of confusion that seems to have infected the district court’s analysis. The district court framed the sole relevant inquiry as whether "[a] clause purporting to require arbitration of a [FLSA] claim that is contained in a collective bargaining agreement" clearly and unmistakably requires arbitration. Abdullayeva v. Attending Homecare Servs., LLC , 2018 WL 1181644, at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 5, 2018). The district court therefore applied the "clear and unmistakable" standard when analyzing whether the Union agreed to arbitrate on behalf of its members. This was error.

Under relevant Supreme Court and Second Circuit caselaw, the "clear and unmistakable" standard is applicable only to the question whether a union has waived its members’ right to bring statutory claims in court, not to the initial question whether an arbitration agreement exists at all. After all, the clear and unmistakable standard does not reflect disfavor of union-negotiated...