Rashaan Carter v. SP Plus Corporation

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
• Decided: April 15, 2026
• Docket: 25-2127
• Status: Published
• Author: Easterbrook

Opinion

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 25-2127 RASHAAN CARTER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

SP PLUS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 25-cv-312 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 12, 2026 — DECIDED APRIL 15, 2026 ____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, PRYOR, and MALDONADO, Circuit Judges. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Shortly after Rashaan Carter filed this suit based on state and federal minimum-wage stat- utes, the district judge entered a stay in favor of arbitration. The stay rested on a box checked during Carter’s “onboard- ing” process at SP Plus, the employer. The district judge later acknowledged that she had jumped the gun by granting the employer’s motion without notice to Carter. SP Plus had accompanied its motion with a 2 No. 25-2127 declaration describing its hiring processes and representing that each new employee fully reviews every section of every agreement, so that if a given box has been checked the em- ployee must have given at least verbal assent. But after receiv- ing the district judge’s initial decision, Carter filed an affidavit declaring that Brenjy Etienne, on SP Plus’s human-relations staff, filled out and “signed” most of the forms (including the assent to arbitration) on Carter’s behalf, not explaining what they were and not offering him an option to decline or even allowing him to see the computer screen that set out the choices. If that is so, then Carter has not agreed to arbitrate. This led the district judge to lift her stay, writing that defendant fails to engage with plaintiff’s account of his onboard- ing process, which calls into question defendant’s view that plain- tiff’s consent to arbitrate must be inferred from the presence of the initials “Rc” and a check in the box next to “Employee Electronic Signature” on the electronic document captioned “Mutual Agree- ment to Arbitrate All Claims.” On the record before me, I cannot determine that a valid agreement to arbitrate was formed. Accord- ingly, upon reconsideration, defendant’s motion to stay pending arbitration is denied.

At this point SP Plus might have proffered evidence contra- dicting Carter’s affidavit. Instead it filed a notice of appeal, and jurisdiction is the first question we must address. According to 9 U.S.C. §16(a)(1), an appeal may be taken from an order “(A) refusing a stay of any action under section 3 of this title [9 U.S.C. §3], [or] (B) denying a petition under section 4 of this title [9 U.S.C. §4] to order arbitration to pro- ceed”. SP Plus tells us that the district court’s order on recon- sideration is one “denying a petition under section 4 to order arbitration to proceed.” More likely it is one refusing a stay under §3, because Carter rather than SP Plus is the plaintiff. Either way we look at it, however, the judge denied a motion but did not state explicitly whether she had denied SP Plus’s No. 25-2127 3 request for arbitration. Was the district judge’s next step going to be litigation on the merits or an evidentiary hearing to de- termine whether Carter himself checked the box? If the for- mer, then the request for arbitration has been denied, but if the latter, then the decision has simply been postponed. A de- lay during the evaluation of evidence differs from a denial that is appealable under §16(a)(1)(B). Section 4 provides, among other things: Five days’ notice in writing of such application [for arbitration] shall be served upon the party in default. … The court shall hear the parties, and upon being satisfied that the making of the agree- ment for arbitration or the failure to comply therewith is not in issue, the court shall make an order directing the parties to pro- ceed to arbitration in accordance with the terms of the agreement. … If the making of the arbitration agreement or the failure, ne- glect, or refusal to perform the same be in issue, the court shall proceed summarily to the trial thereof. If no jury trial be de- manded by the party alleged to be in default, or if the matter in dispute is within admiralty jurisdiction, the court shall hear and determine such issue. Where such an issue is raised, the party al- leged to be in default may … demand a jury trial of such issue, and upon such demand the court shall make an order referring the issue or issues to a jury in the manner provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or may specially call a jury for that pur- pose. If the jury find that no agreement in writing for arbitration was made or that there is no default in proceeding thereunder, the proceeding shall be dismissed.

The district judge stated that neither she nor SP Plus had given Carter the required notice, let alone offered a trial to de- termine what happened. This implies that the order rescind- ing the premature directive to arbitrate is not final and that the appeal must be dismissed. Yet a party entitled to a hearing or trial is free to relinquish that right, a principle as true in proceedings under §4 as in other litigation. Burch v. P.J. Cheese, Inc., 861 F.3d 1338, 1347– 4 No. 25-2127 48 (11th Cir. 2017); see also United States v. Feichtinger, 105 F.3d 1188, 1190 (7th Cir. 1997) (observing generally that statutory rights can be waived). Some statutes (e.g., 15 U.S.C. §77n) for- bid waivers, but §4 does not. SP Plus wants us to direct the district court to hold a hearing, yet it did not ask the judge for one. In the district court, SP Plus did not evince a desire to present evidence in response to Carter’s. A party can’t keep the district court in the dark about the existence of an eviden- tiary dispute and then ask for relief on appeal. As far as any- one could tell from the papers that SP Plus filed in the district court, it had nothing to say in response to Carter’s affidavit. It would have been easy to file an affidavit from Brenjy Etienne stating that Carter personally agreed to arbitration— easy, that is, if Etienne remembers obtaining his assent. But if Etienne remembers things as Carter narrated them, and the electronic trail is inconclusive, then SP Plus lacks essential ev- idence. Having said nary a peep on the subject in the district court, SP Plus forfeited any opportunity for a hearing. This means that the district court’s order conclusively denied the request for arbitration and so is appealable. It also means that the district court’s order cannot be dis- turbed on appeal. Carter swears that he did not agree to arbi- trate. Whether someone has agreed to arbitrate is a question for the court rather than the arbitrator, AT&T Technologies, Inc. v. Communications Workers, 475 U.S. 643 (1986), and the evi- dence in this record does not show that the district court’s conclusion is clearly erroneous. SP Plus tells us that we must place a thumb on the scale in favor of arbitration, which it deems a favorite of the law. Its brief asserts that there is “a strong federal policy favoring ar- bitration” that overrides quibbles such as Carter’s. Yet the No. 25-2127 5 Supreme Court has held that there is no such policy. Instead the federal policy is to make “arbitration agreements as enforceable as other con- tracts, but not more so.” … Accordingly, a court must hold a party to its arbitration contract just as the court would to any other kind. But a court may not devise novel rules to favor arbitration over litigation. … If an ordinary procedural rule—whether of waiver or forfeiture or what-have-you—would counsel against enforce- ment of an arbitration contract, then so be it. The federal policy is about treating arbitration contracts like all others, not about fos- tering arbitration.

Morgan v. Sundance, Inc., 596 U.S. 411, 418 (2022) (citations omitted). SP Plus does not discuss Morgan or any similar de- cision by the Supreme Court. Instead it denigrates Carter’s af- fidavit as “self-serving,” as if that entitled a court to disregard it. See Hill v. Tangherlini, 724 F.3d 965 (7th Cir. 2013) (overrul- ing decisions that allowed judges to devalue self-serving affi- davits made on personal knowledge). A brief that repeats ca- nards expressly rejected by decisions such as Morgan and Hill is hard to take seriously. AFFIRMED