Abuse of Arbitration Clause Costs Employer

A mortgage company denied a deaf employee’s request for sign-language interpreters to enable him to participate in team meetings, instead asking him to use lower-cost alternatives. Those, however, were insufficient; he was subsequently terminated in 2021. His employee agreement had an arbitration clause, but instead of invoking it, the employer took over six months to conduct an investigation, compiling “tens of thousands of pages of documents,” taking depositions and issuing subpoenas. After all that, they THEN filed a motion to “dismiss or stay proceedings and compel arbitration. That motion was filed in August, 2021. The district court denied the motion to arbitrate because of the time elapsed and because of a similar case that had been decided by the Supreme Court while the district court case was in progress, which similarly held that the defendant forfeited their right to arbitration because of unreasonable delays.