A former Lululemon USA Inc. employee who sued the company, alleging she was falsely portrayed as promiscuous and wrongfully fired in 2021 in retaliation for complaining about workplace safety, will have to arbitrate her claims, a judge has ruled.
Janis Peebles’ Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges wrongful termination, retaliation, harassment and failure to prevent harassment and retaliation. On Thursday, Judge Barbara Meiers granted a Lululemon motion to compel Peebles to have her claims decided by an arbitrator rather than a jury.
The judge placed the lawsuit on hold pending the outcome of the arbitration and scheduled a status conference for Oct. 9. In a sworn declaration, Peebles maintained she was never told when hired that she would have to arbitrate any employment disputes.
“I did not have an understanding that I would be signing away my right to jury trial as to any claims arising out of my employment with (Lululemon),” Peebles said. “Nor did I intend to do so at the time.”
But in their pleadings, Lululemon attorneys said the employment contract was clear regarding arbitration of disputes. The lawyers said Peebles worked as an “educator” at the stores in Century City and the Grove.
“Throughout her employment with Lululemon, the parties agreed to be bound by an employment arbitration agreement which requires final and binding arbitration of any dispute arising out of or related to the parties’ employment relationship,” the Lululemon lawyers contended in their court papers.
According to the suit, Peebles was working on Lululemon’s floor at the Grove when she saw that employees were not trained on how to properly put inventory away, causing clothing racks to often fall on employees, including the plaintiff, creating “significant safety hazards.”
The problem was an ongoing concern at Peebles’ job site and she complained to multiple supervisors who did nothing, according to the suit. After Peebles was hurt in one such clothing rack fall in April 2021, she reported her injury to her inventory supervisor, who broke a promise after assuring Peebles that she would communicate the issue to management, the suit states.
Having received no response, Peebles posted her complaints about the safety hazards and her injuries on social media along with pictures of the danger zones, demanding viewers’ attention on the issue and asking that managers “not be lazy about workplace safety,” the suit states.
Supervisors called her into a meeting that month, asked her to remove the post and stated that she should not have used such direct language, the suit states. Subsequently, one manager started speaking negatively about Peebles at work, according to the suit.
The next month, a female manager “began spreading rumors about Ms. Peebles at workplace, stating that Ms. Peebles would sleep with any man who approaches her,” according to the suit.
Because of the explicit rumors and direct statements, two male employees approached Peebles, made inappropriate sexual comments and aggressively attempted sexual contact, all of which she reported to the manager who handled sexual harassment complaints, the suit states.
Peebles also shared her alleged sexual harassment and the negative treatment she had received with the store manager and the assistant store manager, obtaining a commitment from the manager that she was going to do something about it by meeting with one of the male workers, the suit filed last Nov. 9 states.
But Peebles felt unsafe about being outed at that time and emailed both the manager and assistant manager multiple times, but did not receive a response until after their meeting with the male worker, the suit states.
The store manager said nothing about investigating the female supervisor who “initiated the sexual harassment scheme against Ms. Peebles” and implied nothing could be done about the supervisor’s alleged harassment of the plaintiff, the suit states.
“The intensifying hopelessness created by the toxic work environment was not only unaddressed, but served to intensify the danger and remoteness of Ms. Peebles’ situation,” according to the suit, which further states the plaintiff was fired in June 2021.