Question

Afer Philios notiied Hooters that she intended to After Phillips notified Hooters that she intended to Tile suit for sexual harassment and employment dis- crimination, Hooters filed suit to compel arbitration compel arbitration. 1. Who prevails and why? 2. Why do you think that Hooters cho chose to include The district court ruled in favor of Phian vod contractsins been P that the arbitration clause was unenforceable and void contracts because it was not a true meeting of the minds required 3. HadP for an enforceable agreement between the parties an that the clause was void as a matter of public policy.change your ld ips and held mandatory arbitration clause in Phillips been provided a copy of the rulcs she signed the employment contract, wout Hooters appealed analysis? Why or why nor? ld thi au 105 S.W.3d 190

Answer 1

1. Who prevails, and why?

Phillips prevailed as the courts ruled in her favor. The agreement by Hooters was found to be unenforceable because of numerous reasons. Firstly the employees were not provided copy of the rules prior to signing the agreement so they could not make an informed waiver decision; the arbitrators could only be selected from a list given by Hooter. It was noticed that Hooters had their own arbitrators, who would record the proceedings and could move for summary dismissal also. The clause did not provide Phillips any such right, thus making it extremely bias, and hence fails to meet the fairness requirement. Therefore the agreement was unenforceable

2. Why do you think that Hooters chose to include a mandatory arbitration clause in its employment contracts?

Hooters decided to choose to include mandatory arbitration in their employment contracts because it is less expensive and faster approach than going through an entire process of litigation. It is a cheaper method reaching resolutions in employee related grievances. Moreover Hooters is the type of restaurant that thrives on publicity, thus would not prefer anything in the media which may harm their reputation and could lead to bad business. In the given cases, it was chosen to protect themselves as much as possible from sexual harassment lawsuits due to a high risk in that specific industry. Thus to prevent Phillips from pursuing her employment discrimination and sexual harassment claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions

3. Had Phillips been provided a copy of the rules when she signed the employee contract, would this change your analysis? Why or why not?

No, it will not change our analysis because it is not the sole reason for the clause to be unenforceable. There were several more reasons such as meeting the minimum standards of a bona fide arbitration clause