Injured worker must heed to arbitration agreement

An injured supermarket baker who was struck by a forklift can’t sue for negligence and must adhere to her employer’s arbitration agreement despite claiming that she does not understand English and did not know what she was signing, a Texas appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Maria Saenz worked for H-E-B Grocery Company LP, which was a nonsubscriber to Texas’ workers compensation system and instead had in place its own Work Injury Benefit Plan that included an arbitration agreement barring litigation in the event of an injury, according to documents in H-E-B, LP d/b/a Joe V's Smart Shop v. Maria Saenz, filed in the Court of Appeals of Texas, First District, in Houston.

Following Ms. Saenz’s lawsuit, the company moved to compel arbitration based on a clause in its benefits agreement. Ms. Saenz argued “procedural unconscionability,” asserting that “she does not read or write English” and “that she was pressured to electronically sign the documents in English and did not have time to review the documents or have them translated.”

The trial court “found Ms. Saenz to be very credible” and denied H-E-B’s motion.

The appeals court reversed, referring to a supervisor’s testimony that a Spanish copy of the injury plan was provided at her orientation, and ruled that she did not establish procedural unconscionability, per state case law, in that “a party to a written agreement is presumed to have read and understood its contents… This is true whether she understood the consequence of her signature on the contract or not.”

“While there is some evidence that Saenz’s questions were rebuffed (by supervisors)… there is also undisputed evidence that Saenz asked no questions at the Spanish-language orientation session,” the court wrote. “H-E-B’s procedures are not a model of transparency and disclosure, and they can lead a new employee to unwittingly waive the right to a jury trial. Nonetheless, we are not presented with shocking evidence of fraud, misrepresentation, or deceit.”