The Jackson|Lewis California Workplace Law Blog reports on a decision from the California Court of Appeal that held an automobile dealership that translated a sales contract into Spanish, but did not include the arbitration agreement in the translation, could not enforce the agreement. According to the decision, despite signing the English version of the contract (that did contain an arbitration provision), under California law, the arbitration agreement was not enforceable because (1) Spanish was the primary language of the party seeking to invalidate the arbitration agreement; (2) negotiations were conducted in Spanish; and (3) the party seeking to invalidate the arbitration agreement was unaware of the arbitration provision in the Spanish version of the contract.
