Hergenreder v. Bickford Senior Living Group, LLC
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
656 F.3d 411 (6th Cir. 2011)
When Bickford Senior Living Group (Bickford) (defendant) hired Hergenreder (plaintiff), she signed various tax, insurance, and background-check forms and acknowledged receiving the employee handbook — but the handbook itself said it wasn't a contract, and none of the documents she signed mentioned arbitration. The handbook merely referred employees to a separate dispute resolution procedure document (DRP), which required arbitration "as a condition of employment" and said continued employment alone was enough to bind employees to it; Bickford nonetheless normally asked employees to sign a separate acknowledgment of the arbitration clause. Hergenreder claimed she never saw or signed anything about the DRP, and Bickford could only offer a company executive's testimony that the DRP was generally distributed, not any document showing Hergenreder actually received it. The district court found her bound by the DRP's arbitration clause and dismissed her lawsuit; she appealed.
Whether a legally binding arbitration agreement can be found where an employer offers only generalized testimony that an arbitration policy was distributed, without objective proof the specific employee received or assented to it.