Employee Survival Guide® - Well Known Employers Are Still Forcing Arbitration in Violation of EFAA in Sexual Harassment Cases

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Comment on the Show by Sending Mark a Text Message.Uncover how some employers are still clinging to forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases, sidestepping federal prohibitions, and what that means for you. We'll break down the 2022 law signed by President Biden, aimed at eliminating forced arbitration, and celebrate the pivotal role Gretchen Carlson played in driving this reform. You'll learn about the legal challenges some big-name companies like Tesla and CVS have faced and gain a better understanding of the legal framework, including the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA).Join us as we navigate the evolving landscape of employment law, spotlighting the recent legal victories that empower employees, especially in hostile work environments. From landmark decisions to strategies for leveraging local laws with the help of employment attorneys, we'll equip you with the knowledge to tackle legal challenges head-on. Hear about key cases like Teyo Johnson's and gain insights on filing complaints, negotiating severance, and resisting forced arbitration's grip on valid claims. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States. For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.

Hey, it's Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide where I tell you as always what your employer does definitely not want you to know about and a lot more. Hey, it's Mark and welcome back to the Employee Survival Guide. And today's topic is something that I'm currently working on experiencing with clients and the courts are grappling with. And that's employers continue to force arbitration in sexual harassment cases in violation of federal law. What do I mean?

I mean that employers are seeking to prevent the disclosure by plaintiffs' counsel like myself and their clients from airing the dirty sexual harassment actions that are committed every day at work in a court. Typically, in my case, it's always federal court. And arbitration, or I call it forced arbitration, is something, let's understand it folks, it's an agreement that is fostered upon an employee without any negotiation whatsoever, a contract. And it's kind of a take a leave a deal, it's a sham deal. And the employees have to choose between taking a new job with this provision of arbitrating

their complaints in the future they don't know they're going to have and or go elsewhere. The President Biden signed into law an act ending forced arbitration and sexual assault and sexual harassment cases in 2022. to. And this act was promulgated because of events that occurred prior to that, and most notably an individual who advocated to Congress, Gretchen Carlson, thank you Gretchen, to prevent sexual harassment for arbitration cases in the future. And she did so. and then President Biden signed into law. So it's a wonderful act. It stops the insanity of an employer's behavior to shield themselves behind the cloak and dagger secrecy of an arbitration agreement. Most employees don't understand what arbitration is, and it is a default management

practice that is used by employers. And it's real. And it becomes really real for employees when they are now subjected to discrimination by the management, and they're forced to go to court because employers are not willing to settle with them. And and they're forced to, you know, go to court because employers are not willing to settle with them and so they're pushing, pushing, pushing and eventually they have to file suit. So today I wanted to talk about, well what's happened and how are the employers and who are the employers, what are they doing lately to prevent just nice folks from having their day in court in front of a jury? And I'll just jump right to it.

The list of companies is quite large. One company, Every Realm Inc. is a company that is now famous because of a famous decision, actually two of them, thanks to their own CEO who caused it all. Meetup LLC, and there's, let's see, Finco Services is another company, and SunWest Mortgage is another company.

These are all cases that are actually reported in the federal court dockets and state court dockets whereby the employers are challenging the employees' complaint to compel arbitration, meaning that they are challenging whether the employee has a valid claim of sex harassment in general. Other companies are SA Hospital Group LLC, Paul Taylor Dance Company,

CVS Pharmacy, we know that one, that's a very large one. How about Tesla? Yes, Tesla actually is one of those cases, Northern District, California in 2023. They choose to challenge an arbitration provision of an employee and they lost. And they couldn't compel arbitration. Jewel Labs, we know that name.

And the list goes on. Gartner Group, that's a case we're litigating now. Berner Engelheim, a pharmaceutical company, that's a case we're litigating now. Uber Technologies, New York Life Insurance, Sabre Healthcare Group, FJL Logistics, Stifle, Nicholas & Company, actually it's a famous spring, sorry, Second Circuit famous case now, out of 2024, whereby Ms. Oliveira was allowed to continue her case

against the company in open court. And then Huntley Hotel is another case. And I spent the time to go through these employers and try to locate them as many as I could. I'm sure there are more of them. But what's happening here is, and really wanted to shame the employers who are challenging these nice folks to,

in court to claim that they didn't have cases. And I'm sure that those cases before they got the court, employers, employment attorneys like myself, attempted in good faith to resolve them. Because a good employment attorney should do that prior to filing a lawsuit to protect its client from public disclosure. At the same time, ask an employer,

do they want to avoid public disclosure before this parade of horrible facts is set forth in a complaint, so that should happen But when the cases get to court employers are and their attorneys are Ready gunning for any ability to throw them out of court and what's called a motion to compel arbitration where technically the case gets stayed And the case goes into arbitration for where technically the case gets stayed and the case goes into arbitration for adjudication.

So the federal court will stay the proceeding, so nothing happens. And so in a lot of these cases, the courts are working out, you know, how do we apply the law? And let me tell you what the law says. In the particular, the law I'm referring to is the Act Ending Forced Arbitration. It's called EFAA. And it says, quote, specifically, provides that at the election of the person

alleging conduct constituting a sexual harassment dispute, no pre-dispute arbitration agreement shall be valid or enforceable with respect to a case which is filed under federal state law and relates to the sexual harassment dispute. In doing so, the EFAA unequivocally ends the era of employers being able to unilaterally compel arbitration in sexual harassment cases.

The statute specifically says federal, state, tribal, and local law, and I'm going to get to that in a second, because that's very important. Federal law, you have Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And for sexual harassment cases, you have to demonstrate the employer's behavior was severe and pervasive. This is a well-trotted standard the courts are familiar with. Courts are familiar with a hostile work environment,

which is also a facet of sexual harassment. The other form of sexual harassment is quid pro quo, where you're basically exchanging sex favors for favoritism at work. There's another category called hostile, I'm sorry, hostile environment in the retaliation setting where it's retaliatory hostile environments, what the court calls them.

So you have these facets of sexual harassment and retaliation. Under Title VII, but didn't you have state and tribal and local law? And sometimes, unlike Connecticut, state law is more liberal, not in Connecticut. If you can get the gist here that I'm not too hyped up on Connecticut,

which is, if you didn't know, it's a blue state, but it's odd. It's like it borders Massachusetts, which is also a blue state, which has an incredible statute favoring employees and much more liberal in terms of discrimination, much like California. So there's federal state, and then there's, let's say,

for example, New York City code law, which is very liberal and very broadly defined, much more encompassing than the narrow Title VII. And so what I'm getting at is this. Many cases that are hidden in the court dockets in the courts, the judges, some of them are probably listening, are forced to decide the cases under what statute applies.

So if it's Title VII, severe and pervasive, sexual harassment, hustle, environment cases, the judges are familiar with that, and the plaintiff has to mount facts in the complaint about how things happened and whether it was severe and pervasive. And the judge will assess that in the complaint to determine at the initial stage whether the case gets stayed in compelled arbitration or not.

So you got to meet a standard, a burden of proof. And employers are attacking this issue. I mean, what promoted this podcast episode is that the level of vigor that employers are attacking this issue is, well, it's unprecedented. I mean, they are just going after it to, it's almost as if psychologically they're pissed that the statute was passed. And that's the flavor I get. I mean, these are people that I respect and know

as colleagues at the defense side, but the level of aggression that I can see in the arguments made in the various court cases I'm reading and even the cases we're litigating is that these employers are basically at the throat of the employee to cut it off, prevent you from getting your day further into court. Now, they're already in court with their fact pattern,

you can't erase that. Anybody can Google and find it. When you file off an old case, by the way, Google picks it up and you can find the complaint. And so it's out there, it's public. So why are employers attacking it when the fact pattern's already out there? You know assuming that plaintiff like a plaintiff attorney like myself has already Attempted to pre suit negotiate the case beforehand because I send a copy of the complaint to opposing counsel to read it before I file it

Because I want them to see you know business folks adults make decisions, you know You know make a decision before it gets publicly known and I have have a reputation of filing lawsuits, that's what I do. But I also have a reputation of trying to negotiate cases and sharing my complaint before it's filed. I had this exact conversation today with the opposing counsel. And they know that. And I want them to know that. So back to the complaint stage where you're already filed, the cat's out of the bag, the parade of horrors is there,

we know who did what to whom and how bad it was. And if you want to read something, you want to listen to something, why don't you listen to the podcast that I had produce. It's from the Johnson versus Elvery, Every Realm Inc case. And it's named after Teo Johnson is a former NFL player Please listen to this

Episode it's in the podcast series here and the employer survival guide and it's titled as former NFL player I'll tell you I'm not pronounces name correctly. I apologize Teo Teo Johnson's sexual harassment story, forced arbitration and one unbelievable CEO. I mean, I had to just coin a title for her because what she did to him, I mean, you just gotta listen to it or read it. You can actually listen to it

and I actually put the link to the actual court case itself decision where you can read exactly the detail. There's another podcast episode I put up as well on the same day, it's Patricia Oloveri and her big win against Stifle and defeating forced arbitration in sex discrimination cases. And that case was important

also because of what factually happened to her. But that case is very important because of, it operates on the issue of when does a claim accrue? And claims have to accrue after March 3rd, 2022, unless you have this what's called a continuing violation doctrine pled in your complaint. Meaning that these are interrelated facts that happened before March 3rd, 2022, and then thereafter.

And so they become one long fact pattern of discrimination. So really take a stop and listen to these things because these are real stories affecting real people. And it's pretty amazing what employers will do. And in Teo's case, his employer, his CEO, I mean mean you just Listening to it. It's it's not comedy. It's just I mean, it's it's beyond entertainment. It's just it's troubling To listen to what is publicly out there in a public federal court decision about what she did to him

So Let's take a quick break. It's Mark, and we have a new product for you. It's called the Employee Survival Guide or EmployeeSurvival.com. And it's a site that you can obtain PDF products that I created myself as spending too many hours, way too many, researching and

writing about, for example, the performance improvement plan or beating them. And the second one about negotiating severance negotiation agreements, two of the most important topics that we see in terms of the web traffic and podcast traffic we have. So check out employeesurvival.com and see if this can try to help you

and you don't need an attorney to use it. Thank you. if this can try to help you and you don't need an attorney to use it. Thank you. Back to the issue of employers at the throats of employees in federal court challenging these cases and trying to attack whether their claims should be dismissed and put into arbitration.

Why are we talking about all this? Because it's enormously critical for people who are involved in it or about to be involved in it, or who are about to file a lawsuit, because if the court sanctions the case to be stayed or to remain in court, that's a huge leverage factor for an employee. And it gives them the opportunity to litigate their case all the way to a jury, where the

employer had the intention and they had the ego thought that they would be able to stop them in enforcement arbitration, and they got shut down. And when a federal court digs into a case like that, it's like the first evaluation of the claims of the case. And it sends a clear message to the other side and there's a written decision about it, the court will go into the analysis, did the person satisfy the standards for let's say, gender discrimination under New York City code,

and the entire case would come in because it satisfies the local law. I mean, that's an enormous factor and leverage to push around an employer, okay? So let me start to give you like key points to strategize when thinking about these cases. First determine, you know, do you have any type of city or state law that's more beneficial,

more liberal definition of sexual harassment than Title VII. If you have a good sexual harassment case where there's touching and assault and all that stuff, then Title VII, that suffices. And you can use that to stay in court. But if you have fact patterns, because lawyers can't control the fact patterns, they are what they are when they come in,

you look to more beneficial statutes like the New York City Human Rights Code, and that defines loosely sexual harassment to be some form of taking gender into account when making a decision. And that's pretty liberal. That's not the severe and pervasive standard of Title VII, a harder burden. It works when you have fact patterns that are not of the, I'm conditioning your job on whether you allow my sexual exploitation of you to get a better whatever promotion or something, or engaging in sexual hostile environment with you

of like making you watch pornography, which happens oftentimes, unbelievably. So it's a lesser standard, and you wanna look for it if you can, if your fact pattern is more loosely defined as fitting into sexual harassment, or fitting into a, you know, like let's say New York City code,

because here's the trick of all this. And it's no surprise defense counsel, okay? In the federal statute, EFAA said, it's federal, state, and local law. You just gotta fit within one of them. We had our chief judge here in the District of Connecticut issue a decision where, and it basically just followed the other decisions

from Southern District of New York, where it said, so long as the claim fit within New York City code or the local law, the entire case, meaning all the other parts of the claims, we plead claims like 12 different counts, I mean, race and age, all these things happen at the same time as a sexual harassment case happens. All of it comes in.

The case doesn't get piece-mailed in arbitration. And that's also significant for an employer and a very big leverage for employees. So find your local law after assessing your fact pattern. Obviously, you need to work with an employment attorney to figure out whether you have a claim of sexual harassment. I've given you the information to analyze whether you have a claim of sexual harassment. I've given you the information to analyze whether you have a case of sexual harassment and you can play

Teo Johnson's case and you can read his actual court decision, because I put it there. So you can actually read what the standard is to help you to figure this out before you go hire an employment counsel. So employers are really on their heels, and I'm so happy to see it. I mean, it's just remarkable.

When you have that momentum of a case, you know your fact pattern's working. We have this happening in Gartner Group where there was tossing the salad as the phrase was used between two men. And if you didn't know the urban slang of tossing the salad, we did and we discovered it, but it was used repetitively with our client.

Case is currently pending, so I'll be careful not to go too far on my analysis here, but it's really short. But he just, the plaintiff in that case against Gartner claimed that it was sexual harassment in a hostile work environment And it's likely that he his case will stay in court because he he he met the standard under Title 7 severe and pervasive and

It's likely he will continue. He also alleged a retaliatory hostile environment, which is in a category And let me just talk about that for a second because it's really important. Retaliation simply is, you know, filing an email complaint to HR and your boss saying, I'm being sexually harassed. And you basically give some specifics about it, but nothing great. Like essentially the employer says, well, investigate it, but they won't tell you the results of it. But the act of complaining, this very act of complaining in good faith

that you believed that discrimination took place is enough to protect you. The hostile environment aspect to retaliation claim happens typically after you make the complaint, then you experience this level of just animosity by employer to just screw with your job duties, your pay, whatever it is, even fire you after you file the complaint. So it's a hostile environment, essentially, which means that the employer is trying to make you quit. They just create an environment where you're just blackballed,

you're isolated, you're not included in anything, or they just do it, they can even use PIPs, Performance Improvement Plans, anything in their arsenal to just make you quit and cry uncle, but you don't, and you have to stay your course, and you should because the primary objective in these cases is to remain employed as long as possible till you get your next job.

And if you can create a severance negotiation with your employer, great, and you can leave through your severance agreement and start your new employment. And you can use the threat of litigation, including the aspect of sexual harassment in negotiations because it applies, and you wanna try to do that. And you wanna basically scare the crap out of the employer

that you know all this new information and you're using it in such a way that indicates you have an attorney in the background helping you. Arguably, I get it, would an employer listen more to an outside, or to an attorney who's representing you? Yes, but doesn't mean you can't try it. I mean, this whole idea of this podcast is to put real life information in your hands

to utilize as a tool. I mean, it's the reason why I do this. So you can just listen to it. I'm not talking with you in a way that is highfalutin over your head, talking like a lawyer. It's like, I don't really give a shit about all that. I just want to try to synthesize things in a way that can be understandable,

so you can use it, use it for yourself. Advocate for yourself. I mean, digesting a podcast episode, even produced by an AI device, can still produce information for you because it's based upon what? A written decision. The Teo Johnson case was,

that was literally the episode was based upon an actual written decision by a federal court that the AI narrative device produced for you to listen to to basically hone down its parts. And then for clarity's sake, I included the link to the actual case decision so you can read it. Obviously the case decision doesn't read like a podcast episode, but that's the point of using that.

It's to educate, and that's the whole point of the whole podcast that I'm trying to do. So putting tools into your possession, taking away the high-flute nature of legal advice in courts and all that, it's unnecessary. And giving you access to this information. So here we have access to information regarding forced arbitration, a federal statute

that you can use to help yourself to get what you need. Typically, severance negotiation, if you ever had to file a lawsuit, what you need, typically, severance negotiation. If you ever had to file a lawsuit, you better know why you're doing that. And good counsel would remind you, why are you doing it before you do it? Because I do that. I don't want people to file lawsuits so they don't have to. And so back to the point here is we have forced arbitration being used by employers and pushing on employees who have good claims, claims that meet the standard, but they're putting pressure on

them after they filed suit to challenge them instead of saying, okay, you warned us, you did it, okay, let's just deal with the case and just go on with it instead of trying to challenge them and basically say, instead of trying to challenge them and basically say, we're gonna force arbitration on you. I mean, that's the whole point of this episode is, the various lists of companies I gave you, these notable household names, this is the culture of these corporate offices, of these decision makers

at the C-suite who are sending out their defense counsel, outside counsel at various employment law firms around the country to stick it to the employees. Maybe this is kind of like a threat to Jura. Maybe if the message gets out that they'll always be sued if you file a suit against them and we'll try to force arbitration, somehow somehow that will help the company. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's why they're doing it to, you know, give their strong armed approach to like, you know, we're going to F with you. And you know, you do it, we're going to come after you.

We're going to bleed you dry. I'm not kidding. This is literally what happens. I mean, the mentality of corporations and their defense counsel, I mean, this is what they do for bread and butter living. And outside counsel are more than happy to do this, you know, to follow the directions of their corporate clients. And, you know, I have good friends of mine who are opposite the aisle and they're making their living in defense counsel world to push these motions to compel arbitration. But these are companies that you're driving their car,

you're taking their Uber, you're going to their pharmacy and these are the cultures that they're putting the thumbscrews to their own employees and you gotta be aware of it. To do what? To silence them. To attempt to silence them because now the court case is public but all the discovery and all the decisions that occur afterwards because a complaint just starts the practice of you know the the complaint is the

initial pleading. It's the arbitrator or the court has yet to make a decision. The actions by the employers in their culture is to threat and deter them and also to prevent the decision from becoming public, the decision by the court, because they don't want to be wrong. Employers don't want to be wrong that they allowed a senior executive at Gardner to use, you know, sexually provocative information with his subordinate employee, and then suggest that he and another male employee are engaging in, you know, tossing the salad, which is, you know, you know, I won't get into it, but it's, it's provocative, sexually provocative, sexually hostile, it's sexually hostile.

And arguably the defendant said that was just a joke. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but you don't normally just tell a colleague that you're gonna go toss a solid with your other colleague. It's like, what are you talking about? I mean, so understand these corporations that just spew this nonsense of DEI and all that stuff that was happening, which is now over, now they're undermining employees in such a way that you

need to understand that. Happening across the country, large and small corporations, but trying to silence employees in violation of a federal statute. Now, employers have rights to defend themselves. I'm not going to just go, errant, liberal on you, whatever, because I'm not liberal, although I do the good deed and work for employees. But the employers have an opportunity to defend themselves.

I'm not going to say that they can't. But, you know, when faced with that decision, you've got the complaint before it's being filed because Kerry sent it to you, and you and your internal counsel are assessing the issue, which I have several of these cases happening right now where I'm doing exactly that, giving them an opportunity to take a hard look at it.

And they can get to decide for themselves, what are we going to do here? We can let them file the complaint, we won't challenge them for arbitration, and just proceed to litigate it. They can do that, they can decide to do that. But they don't. They force arbitration, through motion to couple arbitration,

or attempt to do it, and then they challenge the plaintiff, what's called a motion to dismiss, saying, you didn't meet the standard, severe and pervasive, or you didn't meet the standard for New York City code law, that gender was not taken into account when making decisions. And so the employers have the ability to determine before the suit happens, because we send the lawsuit to them to consider resolving it, but they don't. And they make this knowing decision to go into court. They know this is a hot topic. They know that plaintiff's lawyers are all over this shit

about forced arbitration. There's a federal law signed by the president in the United States saying, you gotta stop this. You can't do it, it's against the law. You can't enforce the arbitration agreement, but yet they're still doing it. And they're doing it on cases that have viable fact patterns that meet the standards, but they're still doing it.

These are corporations you might work for. And if you're involved in this case in the future, you're gonna be now forewarned is that, what is it about this company culture you work for? I mean, your day is as good as the next day, the last minute you just worked. I mean, you're at will typically, there all are. And so, does this change your mindset about employers

who use this tactic against victims of discrimination? I mean, let's go there. Why are you treating somebody who's a victim of discrimination? And why are you covering this up? I mean, we had a Me Too event that happened, and we shamed as many people as we could. We engaged in cancel culture, although that was kind of ridiculous.

But I mean, but nothing has really changed. And I need to make that point too. Nothing really has changed and employers are back at it to cover it all up again. And the only person calling it out is, well, yours truly, because that's what I do. And I don't really care anymore because that's what I see. If you see something, you say it, don't you?

I mean, I do. And so that's the importance of this episode is like company cultures attacking victims of discrimination using forced arbitration agreements to challenge them in open court and just apply full court pressure on just individuals who just never saw this coming. And what the employers missed was, why didn't they see it coming on their end from their

own management of their own employees who are managers who committed these acts? And sometimes these acts can be committed by coworkers too, but management, I mean, they should have known. And they just do the same stupid thing. They just cover it up, put it underneath the old rug, and it's almost rinse repeat over and over again. And there's no, this is, these are the companies you work for. I mean, I can't express to you, it's like this doublespeak that comes out of companies,

it's just ridiculous. And my job is to call it out. This is an example of calling it out. Employers commit the same tragedies of sexual harassment as they did beforehand. It's only getting worse. So I keep reporting on these cases and just calling out again,

I'm trying to put the case law, the rule of law, they hear about that phrase a lot, into your hands. I mean, accessibility to this information using any creative way I can, and I'm using it currently using AI devices to synthesize case decisions for you to digest in a way that's really kind of conversational and sometimes I think better than I can do it.

I mean, I get kind of bogged down in the fact pattern itself and I have done these episodes where I've read written decisions and I don't know if that's pissing you off or whether it's entertaining you or you're just laughing at me but I don't care. How do I get you to access the meaningful parts of cases, whether it's the, if you're interested

in the entertainment value of these fact patterns of these people, because people are interested in true crime podcasts, I mean, this is true crime employment podcast. I don't know what motivate people, why they listen to it, but I want to give access to episodes in a way or to case decisions in a way that you can easily access it. I mean, get the major points from it, learn, take away, do something, use it in your own life. That's the whole point because frankly,

now let's just kind of end with this because the law can be so esoteric. I mean, I, true stories like early on, you go to law school, you try to engage the material and it's just, it's like dry, bland, and boring. It only takes, I don't know, 28 years now. I get it, it's like, wait a minute, there's a story of a real person here happening.

It can be entertainment, of course, but it's also be a learning experience and help people yourself and try to digest this stuff because court cases, when you read them and see the links I attached, this is not the easiest of reading. And there's no way to compare in terms of other reading unless you're a lawyer. I mean, if you're a lawyer, you read this shit all the time.

I mean, you're so used to reading this language. I mean, some judges, thankfully, they have an art of writing and they can just develop a fact pattern. But majority of the time, there's a stylistic writing that just, it's, it's, and I know it's the law, it's called case law, but it's just not written for the everyday person. And I, these are meaningful judges. But it's just, and my point of all this is trying to give you access to these very important pieces of law that affect your life because you need to have access to it. But how do you synthesize it without going to law school? And you shouldn't be because it's just the law. And so again, that's the point of the

podcast itself, but also point of using AI to synthesize some of these cases, which are really important. So I'll deviate between doing them. But moral of the story today for forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases, employers are still trying to attack the issue. And it's almost as if they're just embarrassed and shamed when they're being challenged and they just don't like it.

They're like little kids in a sandbox and they wanna just spit at you and just scratch. And like, it's just, it's all juvenile and there's a way around it. And the way around it is find the most liberal statute you can that fits within, let's say from New York City, you work in New York City, use that statute. It will benefit you to the nth degree

because the court is forced to use it because that's the rule of law. And you can get around forced arbitration, have your day in court, go to a jury and tell your story and get a decision from the court that does what? Shames that employer to make them stop it, but they don't stop it because there's always more cases. And that's the horrible underlying theme of this is because there's always more cases. And that's the horrible underlying theme of this

is that there's always more cases. And I wish that was the opposite was true, but it's not. So, sorry, long-winded episode for you, but forced arbitration is still happening. Be aware of it, it's still developing and I'm in the midst of it and getting creative with it, trying to get the message out to you. There you have it.

Have a great day, take care. If you like the Employee Survival Guide, I'd really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that's informative, that's timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment. So if you'd like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so.

And leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I'll keep it up. I'll keep the standards up. I'll keep the information flowing at you. If you'd like to send me an email and ask me a question, I'll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to mcaru at capclaw.com. That's capclaw.com.