Employer’s Failure To Sign Arbitration Agreement Dooms Its Motion To Compel

In Byars v. Asbury Management Services, LLC, a Mississippi District Court denied a motion by a former employer defendant to compel arbitration of claims brought by a former employee. Even though the employee had executed an arbitration agreement tendered by her employer, the employer had failed to sign the agreement. As the court noted, “[t]he arbitration agreement at the heart of our case has ‘express language clearly indicat[ing] an intent for the parties to be bound to the arbitration agreement by signing.’”

According to the court, “[w]hile it may seem strange to not let Gray Daniels [the employer] enforce an arbitration agreement it wrote and presented to [the employee], the Court is simply honoring the words Gray Daniels chose– words that indicated Gray Daniels had to sign too. The result is that the arbitration agreement cannot be enforced.”