In light of the United States Supreme Court's order vacating our judgment in the above-entitled case and remanding the cause to this court "for further consideration in light of AT&T Mobility LLC. v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. __ (2011) [131 S.Ct. 1740]," the parties are requested to brief the significance of that case. The parties are requested to file and serve simultaneous briefs by February 10, 2012, and may file and serve reply briefs by February 24, 2012.We posted about Sonic-Calabasas here.
What's going on here, is that the California Supreme Court decided in Sonic-Calabasas A, 4-3, that an arbitration agreement requiring employees to arbitrate instead of going through the labor commissioner's informal hearing procedure was unlawful. The decision in my opinion cannot survive the Fedreal Arbitration Act, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in AT&T v. Concepcion (discussed here).
So, there will be a round of briefing and then the Court will probably schedule oral argument in the future and issue a new opinion.
DGV