Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ARBITRATION—3d Cir.: No basis to vacate arbitrator’s award granting summary judgment against claims of employee who miscarried at work, (Nov 21, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The Burger King employee alleged the company discriminated against her on the basis of pregnancy when it failed to accommodate her during the medical incident.

Affirming a district court order compelling a Burger King employee who had suffered a miscarriage at work when she was unable to get coverage for her shift to arbitrate her state-law and Pregnancy Discrimination Act claims, the Third Circuit, in a nonprecedential decision, found she assented to her employer’s two-page arbitration agreement even though she claimed the first page was missing when she signed it. Nor was there a basis to vacate the arbitrator’s award granting summary judgment to Burger King, said the appeals court, affirming the district court’s order confirming the award ( McMasters v. Restaurant Brands International, Inc. dba Burger King , Nos. 23-2764 and 24-1701 (3d Cir. Nov. 17, 2025, unpublished)).

While working at a Burger King restaurant, the employee began experiencing severe cramping and vaginal bleeding. Although she called her manager and others looking for someone to take over her shift, she was purportedly unable to find coverage. Because she feared losing her job if she left, she waited until the end of her shift to go to the hospital, where she learned that she had a miscarriage.

Lawsuit. She claimed that when she returned to work, her coworkers would not talk to her and her managers made no effort to stop this. Contending that the atmosphere was very unpleasant, the employee resigned and sued Burger King under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

Lower court proceedings. Burger King moved to compel arbitration and the district court granted the motion. An arbitrator subsequently granted the company’s motion for summary judgment, denied the employee’s request to vacate the award, and instead confirmed it.

Order compelling arbitration. Challenging first on appeal the district court’s order compelling arbitration, the employee argued that while she signed the second page of the company’s two-page arbitration agreement, she never received the first page. She testified that she understood that signing the agreement was a condition of employment and she did not read it or ask questions about it.

There was no dispute, the appeals court observed, that the employee signed the second page of the agreement, which contained an employee acknowledgment assenting to arbitrate claims that were described on the first page. By signing that page, said the court, the employee acknowledged she understood the agreement, had her questions answered, and had learned about the applicable arbitration rules. She also admitted she understood the agreement was a condition of employment.

Rejecting her contention she should be relieved of her obligation to arbitrate because she never received the first page of the agreement, the court found it significant the agreement was only two pages and the page she signed clearly referenced the existence of a first page by stating “Claims, as described above,” and noting, at the bottom of the page, “2 of 2.” Burger King also provided evidence its practice was to furnish new hires with both pages together with other onboarding documents, the court observed, noting that courts can rely on a company’s business practices to prove its employees acted in accordance with that practice.

Concluding that the district court correctly found the employee assented to the arbitration agreement, the appeals court affirmed the order compelling arbitration.

Order confirming the award. The court next addressed the employee’s challenge to the district court’s order denying her request to vacate the arbitrator’s award and granting Burger King’s motion to confirm. In granting summary judgment on the employee’s pregnancy discrimination claim, the arbitrator found the employee did not show Burger King’s nondiscriminatory reasons for its inability to send coverage were pretextual and her assertion that she need not show pretext because she had “direct evidence” of discrimination was incorrect. As to her claim she was constructively discharged, the arbitrator concluded that the alleged working conditions after she returned to work were not so intolerable that they forced her to resign.

A court, observed the Third Circuit, can vacate an arbitrator’s award only under very specific grounds set forth in the Federal Arbitration Act including “where the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final, and definite award upon the subject matter submitted was not made.” An arbitrator, the court continued, “oversteps these limits” by granting relief in a form that cannot be “rationally derived” from the parties’ submissions or “issues an award that is so completely irrational that it lacks support altogether.”

And here, said the court, the award was rationally derived from the evidence and applicable legal standards. The arbitrator applied the relevant law for the pregnancy discrimination and constructive discharge claims, demonstrated it understood the record, and rationally assessed the employee’s claims. While the arbitrator did state that Burger King “could not have been responsible for her miscarriage,” the arbitrator did not rely on this statement in issuing the award and so the statement did not render the award irrational.

Further, even assuming the arbitrator misstated the law by saying that the “direct evidence” framework applied only to disability claims, the arbitrator correctly applied the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework to the employee’s pregnancy discrimination claim because there was no direct evidence of discrimination. “Indeed,” said the court, “nothing in the record shows that the Arbitrator disregarded the applicable legal principles in this case and thus did not engage in a “manifest disregard of law.” Accordingly, the court affirmed the lower court’s order confirming the award.

The case is Nos. 23-2764 and 24-1701.

Judge: Shwartz, P.

Attorneys: Noah Geary (Taft Stettinius & Hollister) for Susan McMasters. Megan Kokontis (Akerman) for Restaurant Brands International Inc.

Companies: Restaurant Brands International, Inc.; Burger King

Cases: Arbitration PregnancyDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge DelawareNews NewJerseyNews PennsylvaniaNews