Arbitration – Labor & Employment – Interstate Commerce – Statutory Claims

Even if plaintiff never treated a patient from outside South Carolina, she does not refute the defendant-employer’s other arguments which show that the parties’ employment contract involved interstate commerce, e.g., 95 percent of approximately 400 shipments of equipment and supplies received by defendant during plaintiff’s employment were shipped from outside of South Carolina. The parties’ employment agreement constitutes an agreement involving commerce for the purposes of the Federal Arbitration Act.

The court grants defendant’s motion to stay and compel arbitration.

The arbitration provision in the employment agreement – “Any controversy, dispute or disagreement arising out of or relating to the Agreement, or the breach thereof, shall be settled by arbitration” – is broad enough to encompass plaintiff’s statutory claims of pregnancy discrimination and sex discrimination.

Webb v. Oaktree Medical Center, P.C. (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-137-18, 9 pp.) (J. Michelle Childs, J.) 3:18-cv-00924; C. Cliff Rollins and Eugene Matthews for plaintiff; Phillip Arthur Kilgore and Steven Michael Nail for defendant. D.S.C.