In a putative wage and hour class action brought by Robert Cocom against his former employer ABM Aviation, Inc. (“ABM”), the panel reversed the district court’s judgment that ABM could not enforce the Mutual Arbitration Agreement (“MAA”) the parties signed when Cocom was first employed by ABM, and remanded for further proceedings.
The district court concluded that the MAA was procedurally and substantively unconscionable based on the analysis in Cook v. University of Southern California, 321 Cal. Rptr. 3d 336 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024).
The panel held that because the challenged provisions of the MAA were distinguishable in important ways from the provisions held unconscionable in Cook, the district court erred in relying on Cook. The panel first addressed substantive unconscionability. In Cook, the court found the arbitration agreement’s scope, duration, and lack of mutuality to be substantively unconscionable. Here, the MAA was limited to employment-related disputes, making this case distinguishable from Cook and from the California Court of Appeal’s more recent decision in Stoker v. Blue Origin, LLC, 343 Cal. Rptr. 3d 756 (Cal. Ct. App. 2026). Second, because the MAA’s more limited scope inherently limited the agreement’s duration, the MAA’s duration was not indefinite and not substantively unconscionable. Third, Cook’s lack-of-mutuality analysis was distinguishable largely because of the MAA’s narrower scope.
Although the district court did not reach the issue, the panel concluded that the MAA’s bar on using arbitration awards for preclusive or precedential effect was not substantively unconscionable.
Finally, the panel held that even if the MAA’s waivers of representative actions under California’s Private Attorneys General Act or of public injunctive relief were substantively unconscionable, those provisions would be severable. Accordingly, the panel concluded that it need not address whether either waiver rose to the level of substantive unconscionability.
Because the panel concluded that most of the MAA’s challenged provisions were not substantively unconscionable, and that any remaining unconscionable provisions could be properly severed, Cocom’s unconscionability defense failed. Because the lack of substantive unconscionability was dispositive, the panel held that it need not address Cocom’s arguments about procedural unconscionability.
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/06/23/25-3246.pdf
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