On the same day that the California Supreme Court issued
Iskanian, another important ruling with respect to class
action arbitration waivers was issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals. In Davis v. Nordstrom, the court held that an
employer's unilateral change to its employee handbook's
arbitration policy—which required employees to arbitrate
nearly all claims individually and precluded employees from filing
most class action lawsuits—was enforceable under California
law.
Nordstrom had an arbitration provision in its employee handbook
that required the arbitration of certain disputes with employees,
and required Nordstrom to provide 30 days' written notice of
substantive changes to the arbitration provision to "allow
employees time to consider the changes and decide whether or not to
continue employment subject to the changes." In July and
August of 2011, Nordstrom revised its arbitration policy to require
employees to arbitrate nearly all claims individually,
