⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

Mayra Manzano's wage-and-hour lawsuit raises a question about what carries over when a temporary worker becomes a company's direct employee. Kelly Services placed her at Stryker, and she signed an arbitration agreement with Kelly. Stryker later hired her directly for the same work at the same site, without getting a new arbitration agreement. Manzano agreed to arbitrate claims against Kelly but brought this separate class action against Stryker for the later employment period. The district judge refused to force that case into arbitration, and Stryker is appealing. Arbitration would put the dispute before an arbitrator instead of a court. Julia Trankiem, for Stryker, will argue that the Kelly agreement expressly protects its clients and survives the move to Stryker's payroll. That is its third-party-beneficiary theory: the contract was meant to protect Stryker even though it did not sign. Stryker also invokes equitable estoppel, arguing that Manzano cannot treat the employment relationships as one for liability but separate for arbitration. Manzano's counsel, from Koul Law Firm, will argue that the agreement does not cover the later job and that her claims arise from labor law, not that contract. Section sixteen of the Federal Arbitration Act permits immediate appeals when arbitration is denied; the parties disagree about whether this also opens the separate class-waiver issue.

Manzano v. POM Medical, LLC, et al. (No. 25-8040) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued October 28, 2026.