Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ARBITRATION—D.N.J.: Employee, who only spoke Spanish, fails to thwart arbitration agreement written in English, (May 12, 2026)

By Tulay Turan, J.D.

A party who signs a contract is presumed to understand and assent to its terms.

Granting a company’s motion to compel arbitration on an employee’s state disability discrimination and whistleblower retaliation claims, a federal district court in New Jersey ruled the arbitration agreement she signed was valid, and her claims fell within the agreement’s scope. Although she could not read or speak English, another employee translated the agreement into Spanish before she signed it, and she failed to present evidence of fraud or duress. In addition, the agreement was not unconscionable. However, the court severed its six-month statute of limitations provision because it was contrary to public policy (DeAngelis v. CSI International, No.23-3178 (JXN)(AME) (D.N.J. May 4, 2026)).

The employee, who can read and speak only Spanish, sought to work at CSI and attended two onboarding meetings. Four CSI management-level employees attended the first onboarding meeting. One of them spoke with everyone in Spanish during the meeting.

Signed documents. During that first onboarding meeting, CSI gave the employee several documents to sign. The management-level employees translated the documents from English to Spanish for everyone. The employee asked for help to understand the documents and with one employee’s assistance, she signed each document. At the second meeting, she signed a job application and an arbitration agreement. She started working for CSI in September 2019.

Suit and motion to compel. Thereafter, the employee filed a complaint against CSI and two supervisors in New Jersey state court. She alleged disability discrimination in violation of the New Jersey Law against Discrimination (NJLAD), whistleblower retaliation and termination in violation of the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), a hostile work environment in violation of NJLAD, aiding and abetting a violation of NJLAD, retaliation and termination in violation of the Worker’s Compensation Act, and wrongful termination.

CSI timely removed the case to this federal court, then moved to compel arbitration and to dismiss the complaint. That motion went through several iterations. CSI filed this fourth motion to compel arbitration. It argued the parties entered into a valid arbitration agreement, and all the employee’s claims fell within that agreement.

The employee responded that she did not assent to the arbitration agreement. She does not read or speak English, so she could not understand the essential terms to which she agreed. She also claimed she was fraudulently induced into signing the agreement and did so under duress.

Valid agreement. Granting CSI’s motion to compel arbitration, the court found there was a valid agreement to arbitrate. The court rejected the employee’s arguments that her signature was procured through fraud, she signed the agreement under duress, and the agreement was unconscionable.

The court first explained that a party who signs an agreement is conclusively presumed to understand and assent to its terms and legal effect. There is no exception when a party does not understand the language in which a contact is written. Thus, the court rejected the employee’s argument that she did assent to arbitration because she could not read English and did not understand what she was agreeing to. However, there is a narrow exception if the contract resulted from fraud or duress.

No fraud. The employee failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether CSI fraudulently induced her to sign the agreement. She argued that she relied on CSI’s translation of her job application, but there was no evidence CSI misrepresented the contents of the employment agreement to her. She cited her own deposition testimony that certain documents were concealed from her and urged the court to imply the existence of fraud. Self-serving deposition testimony is insufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact, the court said.

She also claimed someone else filled out portions of her job application, but she later testified that she signed both the job application and arbitration agreement. Moreover, the court said, the bare fact that someone else assisted her in filling out a job application neither relieved her of her duty to understand the terms of the contract she entered, nor readily permitted the court to conclude the terms of the contract were misrepresented.

No duress. Likewise, the court found the employee did not demonstrate the agreement was voidable for duress. She alleged she was pressured into signing the agreement because CSI told her that if she did not sign the paperwork, she could not work. The court noted it understood the pressure she faced, but that was the ordinary economic pressure job seekers experience. She wanted a job, and CSI offered her one, subject to an arbitration agreement. She signed the agreement and began working for CSI. “That is not, by itself, wrongful pressure,” the court wrote.

No procedural unconscionability. Next, the court turned to the employee’s argument that it should void the arbitration agreement as unconscionable. The court found the agreement was not unconscionable in procedure or substance.

Although employment agreements are contracts of adhesion, such contracts are not automatically void, the court explained. A procedurally unconscionable arbitration agreement involves “circumstances substantially more egregious than the ordinary economic pressure faced by every employee who needs the job.”

Here, no substantially egregious circumstances existed. As discussed previously, the employee’s assent to the job application and arbitration agreement reflected the ordinary economic pressure job seekers face, the court said.

In addition, although she could not read the language in which her agreements were written, it was undisputed that, at her first onboarding, a CSI employee translated into Spanish all the documents she signed, including the job application. The application stated, in clear and conspicuous terms, that if she worked for CSI, she could only bring claims against CSI in arbitration, not in court. Thus, she was on notice of the arbitration agreement at the time of her first onboarding. The circumstances did not reflect overwhelming procedural unconscionability, the court found.

Arbitration provision. Likewise, the court found the arbitration agreement was not substantively unconscionable. The mere fact that an arbitration provision prevents an employee from bringing claims to court is not unconscionable.

Statute of limitations. However, the court did not reach the same conclusion with respect to the agreement’s six-month statute of limitations. The public interests affected by the agreement’s six-month statute of limitations led the court to conclude the provision was unconscionable. The NJLAD contains a two-year limitations period, and the New Jersey Supreme Court has held that shortening that period for a private action is contrary to public policy.

The court reached the same conclusion as to the six-month limitation on the employee’s CEPA claim. A contractual provision shortening CEPA’s one-year statute of limitations would make it harder for a former employee to prevail on a whistleblower retaliation claim and violates CEPA’s public policy. Thus, the court found the arbitration agreement’s six-month statute of limitations was substantively unconscionable and unenforceable as to her claims.

Severability. The court next considered whether to sever the six-month statute of limitations provision. The arbitration agreement had a severability clause that indicated the parties’ intent for the agreement to survive the excision of an unenforceable provision. Reading the agreement as a whole, the court concluded the contract’s central purpose was to arbitrate disputes, not to impose a six-month statute of limitations on arbitrable claims. Striking the provision would not destroy the primary goal of the agreement, the court said. Thus, it severed the provision from the agreement, and concluded there was a valid agreement to arbitrate.

Scope of the agreement. Finally, the court found the employee’s claims fell within the scope of the agreement. Her disputes arose out of her employment with CSI, and she raised claims under NJLAD, CEPA, and CEPA’s common law analogue. Those claims plainly fell within the arbitration agreement’s scope, the court found. As such, the court granted the motion to compel arbitration and dismissed the complaint without prejudice.

The case is No. 23-3178 (JXN)(AME).

Judge: Neals, J.

Attorneys: Alan Joseph Genitempo (Piro Zinna Cifelli Paris & Genitempo) for Maria DeAngelis. Habeeb Sheikh (Jackson Lewis) for CSI International, Inc.

Companies: CSI International, Inc.

Cases: Arbitration Discrimination Retaliation Whistleblowers NewJerseyNews