Watts v. U.S. TelePacific Corp. CA2/2
Four years after plaintiffs and respondents Craig Watts (Watts) and Tolanda McKinney (McKinney) filed their wage-and-hour class action complaint against defendant and appellant U.S. TelePacific Corp. (TelePacific), TelePacific filed a motion to compel arbitration. The trial court denied TelePacific’s motion on the ground that it waived its right to compel arbitration by waiting too long to file it. TelePacific appeals, contending that it could not have waived its right to compel arbitration as to the unnamed class members because they were not parties to the lawsuit before class certification; therefore, it could not have brought its motion to compel arbitration until after a class was certified, making its motion timely.
We cannot adopt TelePacific’s position. If it wanted to arbitrate this dispute, it should have moved to compel arbitration at the outset of this litigation. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s order.
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