15 Amazon Petitions in 13 Courts Seek to Compel Local Drivers to Arbitration

Amazon blitzed the federal courts Friday with 15 petitions in 13 jurisdictions to compel the claims of multiple local delivery drivers to binding arbitration. The drivers provided their services as independent contractors, but they later joined a putative class action against Amazon seeking to change their status to employees, said Amazon’s petition against respondents Cinthia Yarleque and Charles Baker in U.S. District Court for New Jersey (docket 2:24-cv-07046), typifying the others. The respondents have refused to resolve their disputes by binding arbitration, “despite their agreements to do so,” it said. The respondents are individual entrepreneurs who enrolled in the Amazon Flex program to provide New Jersey-area delivery services, it said. Yarleque and Baker downloaded the Amazon Flex app and accepted the independent contractor terms of service when enrolling in the program that included the arbitration provision, it said. The petitions emanate from an October 2016 class action, Rittmann et al. v. Amazon.com (docket 2:16-cv-1554), in which the plaintiffs sought to change the classification of Amazon Flex delivery drivers to employees. Following Amazon’s initial motion to compel arbitration and the supplemental briefing in support of that motion, the number of plaintiffs in the case “has swelled to more than 100 through successive amended complaints, consolidations, and opt-in notices,” said the petition. The Rittmann district court litigation has been stayed a total of 2,343 days, it said: “Despite its age, it is at an early stage of the proceedings.” Triggering Friday’s blitz of petitions was a May 14 scheduling order, allowing Amazon to renew its motion to compel arbitration at an undetermined future date, it said. The question of whether the plaintiffs in Rittmann must arbitrate their claims “remains unresolved,” the petition said.