Signed an arbitration agreement at work? You may still be able to go to court in California

In most cases, you agreed to bring workplace claims to a private arbitrator instead of a judge and jury. Arbitration is a hearing run by a paid neutral, usually a retired judge or an experienced lawyer. It’s private, generally quicker than court, and typically allows less discovery. The arbitrator’s decision is binding, and appeals are very limited.

Employers often ask workers to sign for a few common reasons: no jury, no public record, and a promise not to join a class action. California tried to ban making these agreements a condition of employment, but federal courts blocked that law for agreements covered by the Federal Arbitration Act. An agreement you had to sign to get or keep the job is generally still enforceable. For claims under California’s employee-protection laws, a 2000 California Supreme Court decision sets the floor. The employer pays the costs unique to arbitration, such as the arbitrator’s fees, and you keep every remedy you would have had in court. The agreement itself usually says which claims it covers, so start there.

Generally not, unless you want it to. In 2022, Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, usually called the EFAA. When a case relates to a sexual harassment or sexual assault dispute, the worker, not the employer, decides whether it goes to arbitration. If you choose court, the agreement can’t be enforced against you, whatever it says. A court, not the arbitrator, decides whether the law applies.

California courts have read the law broadly. In two 2024 decisions, the Court of Appeal held that the EFAA keeps the entire case out of arbitration, not just the harassment claim. Wage, retaliation, and wrongful termination claims filed in the same lawsuit generally stay in court too. The California Supreme Court declined to review one of those rulings, and in October 2025 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the employer’s appeal in that case. A 2025 decision added that an employer can’t get around the EFAA by writing into the agreement that state arbitration law applies instead.

The law covers disputes that arose or accrued on or after March 3, 2022, and courts have applied it where harassment began before that date and continued after it. If you’ve been harassed at work, the paper you signed may matter far less than you think, and our sexual harassment lawyers can tell you whether the EFAA covers your situation.

Often, yes, but not always, and not for every kind of claim. Many employment arbitration agreements include a class action waiver, a clause saying you’ll bring claims only on your own behalf. The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2018 that these waivers are generally enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act, and California courts follow that rule when the federal act applies.

There are important openings. The federal act doesn’t cover the employment contracts of transportation workers directly involved in moving goods across state or national lines, such as many truck and delivery drivers, even if their employer isn’t a transportation company. For them, state law decides whether the agreement is enforced, and the result can differ. A waiver can’t block the part of a PAGA claim brought for the state and your coworkers, which section 5 covers. A sexual harassment or sexual assault case can go to court at your choice, as section 2 explains. Some agreements include a 30-day opt-out window that people can miss if they never read the document closely. And a waiver only matters if the agreement itself holds up. If you were told “you can’t join that lawsuit,” it’s worth checking before you take the employer’s word for it.

An arbitration agreement is a contract, and contracts fail for ordinary reasons. The first set of problems is how it was presented and signed. If you never actually signed it, or the employer can’t show the electronic signature was yours, a court may find there was no agreement at all.

The second set is the terms themselves. California courts can refuse to enforce agreements that are unfairly one-sided. Warning signs include terms that bind only the employee, shorten your legal deadlines, take away damages or attorney’s fees you would get in court, make you pay arbitration costs, or strip discovery to almost nothing. A court may cut out one unfair term and enforce the rest, but the more unfair terms an agreement has, the more likely the whole thing fails.

The third set is the employer’s own conduct. California law requires an employer that owes the arbitration fees to pay them within 30 days after they’re due. In 2025, the California Supreme Court held that an employer whose late payment is willful or grossly negligent can lose the right to arbitrate, while an honest, excusable mistake may not cost it arbitration. None of these is automatic, and the details matter, so have the agreement reviewed before anyone assumes it’s airtight.

Generally, the part brought for your coworkers can. California’s Private Attorneys General Act lets an employee recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations on behalf of the state and other workers, and an arbitration agreement can’t waive that right outright. Since 2022, courts have split the claim: the penalties for violations you suffered personally can be sent to arbitration, while the claim for violations against everyone else stays in court, often paused until your individual arbitration is decided.

If the arbitrator finds the employer violated the law as to you, the larger claim can move forward in court for those same violations. If the arbitrator finds you aren’t an aggrieved employee, that finding generally ends your standing to pursue the rest. That makes the individual piece more important than it looks. Our page on PAGA claims in California explains how penalties are counted and what changed in 2024.

An equal pay claim generally can be arbitrated if the agreement covers it, and many agreements do. But arbitration changes the room, not the rules. If you win, you can still recover everything the California Equal Pay Act provides: the wages you were underpaid, interest, an equal amount as liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees. The employer generally has to pay the arbitration costs. The filing deadline, three years after the last unequal paycheck under the current law, is the same in arbitration as in court. Discovery can be narrower, which can matter in a pay case because the employer usually holds the comparison data.

If your pay gap is tangled up with a sexual harassment claim, the EFAA may let you keep the whole case in court, and every point in section 4 about an unenforceable agreement applies here too. Our guide to the California Equal Pay Act covers what the claim can be worth, and our equal pay lawyers can review the pay gap and the agreement together.

Start by getting the document. California law gives you the right to a copy of anything you signed to get or keep your job, so ask in writing for your signed arbitration agreement. Ask for your personnel file and payroll records too; employers generally have 30 days to provide the file and 21 days for the payroll records. Then gather what you have: pay stubs, timecards, schedules, and any messages about hours, breaks, or pay.

Most important, watch the clock. Deadlines keep running whether a claim belongs in court or in arbitration, and some are short; a PAGA notice, for example, generally has to be filed within one year of the last violation.

An arbitration agreement is a document, not a verdict. The California employment lawyers at Wilshire Law Firm can look at what you signed and what you may be owed in the same free case review, available 24/7, with no fees unless you get paid. This article is general information, not legal advice, and every agreement is different.