Citibank Can Make Ex-Employee Arbitrate Individual Wage Claims

Citibank NA can force a former employee to arbitrate individual wage claims brought as part of a suit the worker filed after an earlier arbitration proceeding fell apart, a federal judge said.

The worker argued that her claims should remain in court because the Citigroup Inc. subsidiary’s late payment of a private arbitrator’s fee waived its arbitration rights. But a federal arbitration statute preempts the state law on which the worker based her waiver argument, the US District Court for the Northern District of California said.

Plaintiff Susana Burgos worked for Citibank in California for approximately a decade. She ...