Rashaan Carter v. Sp Plus Corporation

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 25-2127
R ASHAAN C ARTER ,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
SP PLUS C ORPORATION ,
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.
____________________
A RGUED F EBRUARY 12, 2026 — DECIDED A PRIL 15, 2026
____________________
Before EASTERBROOK, PRYOR , and M ALDONADO, 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

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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

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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–

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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

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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.
A FFIRMED

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