## Facts

- Keith Russell worked at Citicorp Credit Services’ call center in Florence, Kentucky from 2004 to 2009 and signed an arbitration agreement covering individual, not class, claims.
- In January 2012, Russell filed a putative class action alleging Citicorp failed to pay employees for time spent logging into and out of computers each workday.
- While the class action was pending, Russell reapplied for work and was rehired; Citicorp had updated its arbitration agreement to include class claims.
- Russell signed the updated arbitration agreement as a condition of reemployment and began working again in January 2013.
- Russell did not consult his class-action counsel before signing; Citicorp’s outside counsel in the pending litigation did not know Russell had been rehired when he signed.
- After learning of the rehire about a month later, Citicorp moved to compel arbitration of the already-filed class action based on the updated agreement.
- The district court denied the motion, concluding the new arbitration agreement did not cover lawsuits commenced before it was signed; Citicorp took an interlocutory appeal under 9 U.S.C. § 16(a).

## Issues

1. Whether a subsequently executed arbitration agreement requiring arbitration of “all employment-related disputes,” including class claims, applies to a class action already pending in court when the agreement was signed.
2. Whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s presumption favoring arbitration supports compelling arbitration absent clear contractual intent to cover preexisting litigation.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to compel arbitration.
- The court held the updated arbitration agreement did not apply to lawsuits already filed and pending when Russell signed it.
- The class action therefore remained in federal court rather than being redirected to arbitration.

## Legal Principles

- Arbitration is a matter of contract; courts compel arbitration only for disputes the parties agreed to arbitrate based on ordinary contract interpretation.
- Contract language framed in present- and future-oriented terms may indicate prospective coverage and may not reach disputes already in litigation absent explicit retroactive language.
- Surrounding circumstances at formation may inform contractual scope, including whether the parties reasonably manifested an intent to alter the forum for an existing lawsuit.
- The FAA’s pro-arbitration policy does not permit extending an arbitration clause to disputes outside the agreement’s intended scope.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit interpreted the updated employment arbitration agreement as prospective and held it did not retroactively require arbitration of a wage-and-hour class action that had already been filed and was actively pending when the employee signed the new agreement.


Russell v. Citigroup, Inc., 748 F.3d 677 (6th Cir. 2014)