Plaintiff Phyllis Gillon (“Gillon”) sued her former employer Defendant UCB, Inc. (“UCB”) for retaliation, race discrimination, sex discrimination, and age discrimination under state and federal anti-discrimination laws. Gillon worked for UCB as a Regional Director for eight years prior to her alleged retaliatory termination. The Employment Agreement between Gillon and UCB contains a mandatory arbitration provision requiring all employment-related claims to be resolved through arbitration. While Gillon both signed the Employment Agreement and initialed the Arbitration Agreement, UCB failed to countersign either. The parties agreed that the Arbitration Agreement is governed by the “laws of the State of Georgia”.
Gillon argued that the Arbitration Agreement is not enforceable because it was not countersigned by UCB as required by the Georgia Arbitration Code which states that it does not apply to “any contract relating to terms and conditions of employment unless the clause agreeing to arbitrate is initialed by all signatories at the time of the execution of the agreement”.
The Court disagreed with Gillon specifically noting the FAA is “pre-emptive of state laws hostile to arbitration”, The Court finds that the Georgia Arbitration Code is hostile to arbitration because the requirements under that statute are more stringent than those under the FAA. Namely, the FAA does not require arbitration agreements to be signed by the parties.
Gillon v. UCB Inc., Civil Action No. 4:24-CV-01418, United States District Court, S.D. Texas, Houston Division. November 19, 2024.
[To be sure, the Federal Arbitration Act at 9 U.S.C. §4 requires an agreement to arbitrate to be in writing -- but it does not require the agreement to be signed:
A party aggrieved by the alleged failure, neglect, or refusal of another to arbitrate under a written agreement for arbitration may petition any United States district court which, save for such agreement, would have jurisdiction under title 28, in a civil action or in admiralty of the subject matter of a suit arising out of the controversy between the parties, for an order directing that such arbitration proceed in the manner provided for in such agreement.]
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