Skye Molina v. JC GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC.

In support of its original motion, Defendant submitted the declaration of General Manager Adriana Molina, attaching a copy of the Agreement (Exhibit A) and a screenshot from Defendant’s document management software (Exhibit B). At the initial hearing on April 22, 2026, the Court was not persuaded that Defendant had met its initial burden of establishing the existence of an agreement to arbitrate, because the copy of the Agreement submitted did not bear any signature, name, or date on its signature

1 Plaintiff has brought a related case against Defendant in this Court, Case No. 25CV470534, for penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act. Defendant has filed a parallel motion to compel arbitration in that action, which was the subject of the same supplemental briefing order.

page, and the significance of the software screenshot was not adequately explained. Rather than deny the motion, the Court continued the hearing to July 22, 2026, and, by order dated May 15, 2026, directed each party to file a supplemental brief “regarding the existence of an agreement to arbitrate,” with no responsive or reply briefs permitted. (Order re: Motion to Compel Arbitration, May 15, 2026.) In its supplemental submission, Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s failure to contest the existence of the Agreement in her original opposition ended the inquiry, and, in the alternative, submits the declaration of Assistant Manager Hye Yeon, describing Defendant’s electronic onboarding process through a software program called “Toast” and attaching what Defendant represents to be the signed Agreement (Exhibit A) and a time-stamp screenshot (Exhibit B). (Declaration of Hye Yeon (“Yeon Decl.”), ¶¶ 5–6.)

Plaintiff, in turn, submits her own declaration flatly denying that she was ever presented with or signed the Agreement, and asserting that another of Defendant’s managers completed her onboarding on Plaintiff’s behalf. (Molina Decl., ¶¶ 3–12.)

II.

Legal Standard

In determining the threshold question of whether an arbitration agreement exists between the parties, a court employs a three-step burden-shifting analysis. (Iyere v. Wise Auto Group (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 747, 755 (Iyere); see also Espejo v. Southern California Permanente Medical Group (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 1047, 1060 (Espejo); Gamboa v. Northeast Community Clinic (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 158, 165.) The party seeking to compel arbitration bears the initial burden of showing an agreement to arbitrate by a preponderance of the evidence.

If that burden is met, the burden shifts to the opposing party to show a factual dispute as to the agreement’s existence. If the opposing party does so, the burden shifts back to the proponent of arbitration to establish the existence of a valid agreement by a preponderance of the evidence. (Iyere, supra, 87 Cal.App.5th at p. 755.) Where the agreement is alleged to have been signed electronically, the proponent must establish that the electronic signature is “the act of the person” to whom it is attributed. (Civ.

Code, § 1633.9, subd. (a); Ruiz v. Moss Bros. Auto Group, Inc. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 836,

843 (Ruiz).) A proponent may do so “by presenting evidence that a unique login and password known only to that person was required to affix the electronic signature, along with evidence detailing the procedures the person had to follow to electronically sign the document and the accompanying security precautions.” (Bannister v. Marinidence Opco, LLC (2021) 64 Cal.App.5th 541, 545 (Bannister).)

III. Existence of an Agreement to Arbitrate

A. Defendant’s party-presentation argument does not resolve the motion. Defendant first contends that, because Plaintiff did not challenge the existence or authenticity of the Agreement in her original opposition, the inquiry into whether an agreement exists is at an end. (Supp. Brief, pp. 1–3, citing Condee v. Longwood Management Corp. (2001) 88 Cal.App.4th 215, 218 and the party-presentation principle discussed in United States v. Sineneng-Smith (2020) 590 U.S. 371.) The Court is not persuaded.

The Court expressly ordered supplemental briefing “regarding the existence of an agreement to arbitrate” and invited both parties to be heard on that precise question. Plaintiff has now squarely placed the existence and authenticity of the Agreement in dispute through her supplemental declaration. The proponent of arbitration – not the opposing party – bears the burden of establishing that an agreement exists, and the Court retains the responsibility to determine that threshold question. (Code Civ.

Proc., § 1281.2; Iyere, supra, 87 Cal.App.5th at p. 755.) Condee does not hold otherwise; it stands for the narrower proposition that a moving party need not authenticate a signature unless and until its validity is challenged. Plaintiff has now challenged it. The Court therefore proceeds to the merits of the burden-shifting analysis.

B. Plaintiff has placed the existence of the Agreement in dispute. Assuming, without deciding, that Defendant’s supplemental submission satisfies its minimal initial burden of producing a copy of an agreement purportedly bearing Plaintiff’s electronic signature (see Espejo, supra, 246 Cal.App.4th at p. 1060), the burden shifts to Plaintiff to identify a factual dispute as to the Agreement’s existence. A party’s unequivocal

declaration that she did not sign the agreement is sufficient to do so. (Iyere, supra, 87 Cal.App.5th at p. 758; Gamboa, supra, 72 Cal.App.5th at p. 168; Ruiz, supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at p. 840.) Plaintiff has made precisely such a showing. She declares that she was never presented with the Agreement at the time of her hire, that she never signed it, and that she “would not have” signed an arbitration agreement had she been asked. (Molina Decl., ¶¶ 7, 12.) She further declares that she was unable to access her onboarding documents on her personal phone; that a kitchen supervisor directed her to complete onboarding in person; and that a front-of-house manager, “Brittany Marie,” accessed Plaintiff’s onboarding documents on the manager’s own computer and completed the onboarding on Plaintiff’s behalf, without Plaintiff’s consent. (Id., ¶¶ 3–8.)

Plaintiff also states that, based on her own subsequent duties, Defendant’s practice was to have managerial employees sign onboarding documents – including arbitration agreements – on behalf of new hires. (Id., ¶¶ 9–11.) This evidence is more than sufficient to shift the burden back to Defendant to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the electronic signature on the Agreement was “the act of” Plaintiff.

C. Defendant fails to establish that Plaintiff signed the Agreement. On this record, the Court finds that Defendant has not carried its ultimate burden of proving the existence of a valid agreement to arbitrate by a preponderance of the evidence. Defendant’s supplemental evidence consists of the Yeon declaration, which describes Defendant’s onboarding process in general terms and asserts that only the employee knows her unique password, that management cannot access or modify the documents, and that no one else can apply an employee’s electronic signature. (Yeon Decl., ¶¶ 5–6.)

But Ms. Yeon does not claim to be a percipient witness to Plaintiff’s onboarding, and her declaration describes Defendant’s standard procedures rather than establishing what actually occurred with respect to Plaintiff. As in Ruiz and Garcia v. Stoneledge Furniture LLC (2024) 102 Cal.App.5th 41, a declarant’s summary account of routine onboarding practices, without a showing of how the declarant knows that the plaintiff herself created the credentials and affixed the signature, is

insufficient to establish that the signature was “the act of” the plaintiff. (Ruiz, supra, 232 Cal.App.4th at pp. 843–844; Garcia, supra, 102 Cal.App.5th at pp. 48, 53.) Defendant’s general assertion that only Plaintiff could have applied the signature is also directly contradicted by Plaintiff’s specific, percipient account that a different manager accessed and completed her onboarding documents on that manager’s own computer. (Molina Decl., ¶¶ 6–8.) Because no reply briefing was permitted, Defendant has not disputed or otherwise addressed these specific factual assertions, including Plaintiff’s contention that Defendant’s practice was to have managers execute onboarding documents for new hires.

Defendant has likewise not produced electronic audit data, metadata, or other evidence linking the signature transmission to Plaintiff, of the kind found lacking in comparable cases. (See Trinity v. Life Ins. Co. of North America (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 1111, 1124–1125; Bannister, supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at pp. 546–547.) Nor has Defendant explained how the copy of the Agreement it has submitted – the signature block of which remains blank, followed by a separate, unnumbered “Employee Signature” page bearing an image of a signature but no name or date – demonstrates that Plaintiff signed the Agreement itself.

Weighing the competing evidence, the Court finds that Defendant has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that Plaintiff signed the Agreement. Accordingly, Defendant has not established the existence of an agreement to arbitrate. Having so found, the Court declines to reach Plaintiff’s remaining arguments regarding preemption under the Federal Arbitration Act, unconscionability, and severability.

IV.

Conclusion

Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration and stay proceedings pending the completion of arbitration is DENIED. The prevailing party shall prepare the order in accordance with California Rules of Court, rule 3.1312.

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