A federal court in the District of Columbia found that an arbitration agreement did not apply retroactively to a pre-existing claim of employment discrimination, that a lack of mutuality is not a bar to enforcement because only the employee may bring discrimination claims, and that the arbitrator, not the court, should decide the course of discovery despite existing case law requiring some access to discovery.

In Shelton v. The Ritz Carlton Hotel Co., LLC, No. CIV.A.07-2171, 2008 WL 1976556 (D.D.C. May 8, 2008), Shelton sued the Ritz for discrimination based on its failure to promote her in either May or September 2005. In response, the Ritz moved for dismissal based on an arbitration agreement signed by Shelton in June 2005.

In ruling on the dismissal motion, the Court determined that the June 2005 arbitration agreement did not apply retroactively to Shelton's May 2005 claim. The arbitration agreement was not yet in effect and contained no language indicating that it was intended to apply retroactively.

However, the arbitration agreement did apply to Shelton's September 2005 claim. Despite Shelton's claim that the agreements lacked mutuality, the Court found that the lack of mutuality was not a bar to enforcement because it made sense that only the employee would be required to arbitrate a discrimination claim since it is only the employee who would have a discrimination claim.

Finally, although there is some case law requiring access to "meaningful discovery," the Court determined that it was appropriate for the arbitrator to decide the issues regarding course of discovery. Under the American Arbitration Association rules applicable in this case, the arbitrator is given the power to order discovery and the Court declined "to interfere in the arbitration process."

Accordingly, the Court found that the discrimination claim premised on the September 2005 failure to promote was subject to the arbitration agreement.