An arbitration provision in a plaintiff’s employment contract should be enforced against him despite his assertion that the defendant employer neither explained the agreement’s contents nor recommended that he consult an attorney, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Over two years into his tenure as an underwriter for defendant United Wholesale Mortgage, LLC, plaintiff John Gavette was fired by the company. Gavette believed his termination resulted from his accommodation request to care for his disabled wife. He sued the company for, in his view, violating federal and state disabilities laws. In response, United Wholesale, citing an arbitration provision in Gavette’s employment contract (the “Agreement”), moved to dismiss the complaint and compel arbitration. The district court granted the company’s motion.

“Neither party disputes that the Agreement contains Gavette’s electronic signature. … Gavette’s primary retort is the following: he does not remember signing an arbitration clause. At most, he recalls documents being ‘laid out in front of [him] without adequate time to review [them] or seek legal advice,’” Judge Chad A. Readler wrote for a three-judge panel.

“In the end, whether Gavette read the Agreement, understood the meaning of its arbitration clause, or received legal assistance from his employer is irrelevant. In Michigan, ‘one who signs a contract will not be heard to say, when enforcement is sought, that he did not read it, or that he supposed it was different in its terms.’ … To the same end, Gavette’s failure to understand the contract’s terms constitutes ‘negligence which estops him from voiding the instrument on the ground that he was ignorant of its contents, in the absence of circumstances fairly excusing his failure to inform himself,’” the court said.

“Gavette faults United Wholesale for failing to engage with his purported ignorance as to the Agreement’s contents. But, again, as a legal matter, Michigan law presumes that parties have read what they have signed, … and nothing indicates that parties need to affirmatively supplement signed contracts with evidence of their presentation before seeking enforcement,” the judge wrote.

“At any rate, United Wholesale did supply sworn testimony from a human-resources director explaining how and why Gavette’s signature appeared on the Agreement, all of which reflects Gavette’s assent to the Agreement. According to that employee, Gavette created a username and password on United Wholesale’s onboarding system, logged into that system using those credentials, and electronically signed the Agreement. And, the record reveals, he seems to have done it on his own time: at 8:19 p.m. on April 11, 2019. Michigan law did not require any of that evidence in the first place, and it certainly does not require anything more,” the court concluded.

The decision is Gavette v. United Wholesale Mortgage, LLC.