Originally from:

Journal of American Arbitration (JAA) - Vol. 6, No. 1

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ARTICLES

Protection from Elusory “Agreements”
to Arbitrate in Douglass v. Pflueger
Hawaii, Inc.
By Kathleen Flynn

I. OVERVIEW
The dispute arose out of an acknowledgment form signed by
Adrian D. Douglass (Douglass), a seventeen-year-old high school
graduate employed by Pflueger Acura (Pflueger).1 Douglass
agreed to the policies, procedures, and arbitration clause contained
in Pflueger’s Employee Handbook (Handbook).2 He was hired as
a lot technician fewer than four months shy of his eighteenth
birthday.3 Douglass attended an employee orientation where he
received Pflueger’s Handbook, a sixty-page manual containing
Pflueger’s general policies and procedures as well as an arbitration
agreement.4 The arbitration clause, located on page twenty of the
Handbook, stipulated that claims arising out of the employee’s
employment or termination with the Company would be settled by
final and binding arbitration in Hawaii.5 Douglass signed an
acknowledgment form located on page sixty of the Handbook.6
The acknowledgment stated that the provisions in the Handbook
were “presented as a matter of information only and [did] not