Hickenbottom: A Second Employment-Arbitration Motion Must Follow California Renewal Rules

Read the source decision.

An employer that loses a motion to compel arbitration cannot simply return with a different contract and ask for the same order without addressing California’s rules for renewed motions. In Hickenbottom v. Medical Solutions LLC, the Court of Appeal treated the employer’s second arbitration motion as a renewed motion governed by Code of Civil Procedure section 1008.

Two agreements and two motions

Derek Hickenbottom, a former travel nurse, filed a putative California wage-and-hour class action against Medical Solutions LLC. The employer’s first motion to compel relied on an arbitration provision in an employee handbook. The worker responded that a later travel-assignment agreement had superseded that provision.

The employer acknowledged the problem at the hearing, and the trial court denied the motion. About a month later, the employer filed another motion seeking to compel the same claims to arbitration, this time relying on the later agreement. It did not submit the affidavit or diligence showing required by section 1008.

Code of Civil Procedure Section 1008 and Successive Motions

Section 1008 limits repeated requests for the same relief. A renewed motion must identify new or different facts, circumstances, or law and must be supported by an affidavit explaining why that material was not presented earlier.

The appellate court focused on the relief requested, not merely the contractual theory. Both motions asked the court to order Hickenbottom to arbitrate rather than litigate his wage claims. Using a different arbitration clause did not transform the second request into an unrelated motion.

Because the employer did not comply with section 1008, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider the renewed request. The order denying it was therefore not appealable, and the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal rather than deciding whether the later arbitration agreement otherwise was enforceable.

FAA Preemption and California Section 1008

The employer argued that applying section 1008 conflicted with the Federal Arbitration Act. The court disagreed. California applies the renewed-motion rule to requests generally; it does not single out arbitration for disfavored treatment. Equal treatment of arbitration agreements did not require a special exception from ordinary procedural rules.

Lessons for California employment cases

• Collect every handbook, offer letter, assignment agreement, amendment, and incorporated policy before moving to compel.
• Determine which agreement was in force when the dispute arose and whether a later agreement superseded earlier terms.
• If relief was already denied, analyze section 1008 before filing again.
• Document when new evidence was discovered and why it could not reasonably have been presented earlier.
• Distinguish a procedural dismissal from a ruling on the ultimate enforceability of the arbitration clause.

Hickenbottom does not hold that the worker’s wage claims could never be arbitrated. Its narrower lesson is that a party requesting the same judicial order a second time must satisfy California’s renewed-motion requirements.