⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Ninth Circuit considers a nurse's claims about missed meal and rest breaks. The nurse brought proposed class actions against Memorial Health Services and Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, alleging unpaid wages and other violations of California labor law. The hospitals want the meal-and-rest-break claims resolved through arbitration under contracts negotiated with her union. A collective bargaining agreement is that union-negotiated employment contract. Arbitration puts a dispute before an arbitrator rather than a judge. California Labor Code section 226.7 provides additional pay for covered employees when legally required breaks are not provided. Her statutory claims arise from law, separately from promises in the contract. Agreeing to arbitrate those claims concerns the forum, not surrendering the underlying legal protections. The question is whether the two successive contracts clearly and unmistakably require these statutory claims to be arbitrated. The hospitals will argue that the contracts must be read as a whole. The nurse will argue that promising to follow state law is not enough to waive access to court. Another term you will hear is unconscionability: an objection that contract terms are too unfair to enforce. The argument concerns where these claims may proceed, not a final finding that the hospitals violated the break laws.

Stendal v. Memorial Health Services, et al. (No. 25-3778) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 21, 2026.