A California appellate court ruled, in Garcia v. Pexco, that a temporary worker could be made to arbitrate his California Labor Code claims against both the staffing agency that employed him and the company for which he had served as a non-employee temp (Pexco). This was true even though the worker had signed an arbitration agreement only with the staffing agency. The court held that all of the workers' claims, including those against Pexco, were "intimately founded in and intertwined with" his employment relationship with the staffing agency. That relationship was governed by the employment agreement compelling arbitration between him and the agency and explicitly covered statutory wage and hour claims. The court reasoned that since the employee alleged both Pexco and the agency were his joint employers and based his claims against both on the same set of facts, he could not attempt to link the two to hold them liable for alleged wage and hour claims, while at the same time arguing the arbitration provision only applied to the agency and not Pexco.
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