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Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 14, 2020 Decided March 17, 2020

No. 18-7167

KOLY CAMARA

APPELLEE

v.

MASTRO’S RESTAURANTS LLC,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:18-cv-00724)

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. argued the cause for appellant.

With him on the briefs were Rebecca S. Bjork and Alexander J.

Passantino.

R. Andrew Santillo argued the cause for appellee. With him

on the brief were Peter Winebrake, Mark J. Gottesfeld, Jason S.

Rathod, and Nicholas A. Migliaccio.

Before: HENDERSON and RAO, Circuit Judges, and

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

RANDOLPH.

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RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge: This is an interlocutory

appeal from an order of the district court denying a motion to

compel arbitration. See 9 U.S.C. § 16(a)(1). 

Koly Camara, a former server at Mastro’s Steakhouse in

Washington, D.C., sued Mastro’s claiming that the company

deprived him and other servers of a minimum wage in violation

of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the District of

Columbia’s Minimum Wage Revision Act.

Mastro’s moved to compel Camara to submit his claims to

arbitration. The company’s policy was to require its restaurant

employees to sign an agreement to arbitrate any work-related

legal disputes. But Mastro’s was unable to produce a copy of an

arbitration agreement bearing Camara’s signature, or any other

direct evidence of his assent to be bound by the policy. Camara

submitted a sworn declaration stating that he had neither seen

nor signed any arbitration agreement.

The Federal Arbitration Act provides that an arbitration

clause in a contract “evidencing a transaction involving

commerce” “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save

upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation

of any contract.” 9 U.S.C. § 2. Before determining that the Act

applies, the court must decide that the employee has agreed to

arbitrate. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth,

Inc., 473 U.S. 614, 626 (1985).

The district judge, in a comprehensive opinion, correctly

treated Mastro’s motion as if it sought summary judgment under

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) with respect to the

question whether Camara had agreed to arbitrate. See Aliron

Int’l, Inc. v. Cherokee Nation Indus., Inc., 531 F.3d 863, 865

(D.C. Cir. 2008). Under Rule 56(c), summary judgment is

appropriate only if “there is no genuine issue as to any material

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fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a

matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242,

247 (1986) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)).

As the party seeking to enforce an arbitration agreement,

Mastro’s had the burden of proving that Camara agreed to

arbitrate. See Bailey v. Fed. Nat’l Mortg. Ass’n, 209 F.3d 740,

746 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Though unable to produce a copy of the

agreement with Camara’s signature, Mastro’s believes that its

two affidavits and “electronic evidence” showed that there is no

genuine dispute about Camara’s assent to be bound.

One affidavit was from Stephen Carcamo, the General

Manager of Mastro’s Steakhouse in D.C. Carcamo stated that

the restaurant requires all of its employees to execute an

arbitration agreement, that he “personally presented new hires

and current employees with individual arbitration agreements”

and “obtained their signatures, and that “virtually every

Washington, D.C. Mastro’s employee has signed an individual

Arbitration Agreement.” J.A. 27.

These statements provide some support for Mastro’s claim.

If the restaurant requires its employees to sign the agreements,

and if “virtually every” employee has done so, then a jury could

reasonably conclude that Camara signed an agreement too. But

Carcamo’s affidavit is notable for what it does not say. He did

not state that he presented Camara a copy of the arbitration

agreement, or that he witnessed Camara agreeing to its terms. 

Based on this, a reasonable jury could just as easily conclude

that, while most employees signed the arbitration policy,

Camara slipped through the cracks.

The second affidavit was from Laura Jasso, a human

resources director who works for Mastro’s parent company,

Landry’s. Jasso explained that Landry’s operates a database that

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tracks whether Mastro’s employees across the country have

signed arbitration agreements. She stated that on June 25, 2015,

“the field corresponding to [Camara’s] arbitration agreement

was changed” by Mastro’s personnel to affirm that Camara had

signed the agreement. J.A. 35. Attached to Jasso’s declaration

was a printout of a database page showing Camara’s employee

profile. The page shows an “Arbitration Agreement” field, next

to which a “Y” indicating “Yes” had been entered. J.A. 50.

Jasso’s affidavit and the database entry, like Carcamo’s

affidavit, bolster Mastro’s position.

As against this evidence, Camara submitted an affidavit of

his own. Under penalty of perjury, he stated that he “did not see

that agreement when [he] worked at Mastro’s, did not sign it,

and . . . never agreed to its terms.” J.A. 52. He added that he

“never thought, or had reason to believe, that [he] gave up legal

rights, including to a trial by jury, by working for Mastro’s.” Id.

Mastro’s asks us to disregard, or at least discount, Camara’s

affidavit on the ground that Camara’s sworn statements could

not, without more, create a genuine factual dispute because they

were “self-serving.” In support, Mastro’s invokes Carter v.

George Washington University, 180 F. Supp. 2d 97, 111 (D.D.C.

2001). The district court’s opinion in that case contains this

sentence: “However, self-serving affidavits alone will not

protect the non-moving party from summary judgment.” Id.

We reject that proposition as a rule of evidence or of law.

Of course Camara’s affidavit was “self-serving” in the

respect that it supported his position. “Deposition testimony,

affidavits, responses to interrogatories, and other written

statements by their nature are self-serving.” Hill v. Tangherlini,

724 F.3d 965, 967 (7th Cir. 2013). The Seventh Circuit held,

and we agree, that “the term ‘self serving’ must not be used to

denigrate perfectly admissible evidence through which a party

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tries to present its side of the story at summary judgment.” Id.

at 967.

Thus, an “affidavit or declaration used to support or oppose

a [summary judgment] motion must be made on personal

knowledge” and “set out facts that would be admissible in

evidence.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(4). Camara’s affidavitsatisfies

these requirements. It may be that an affidavit lacking specific

facts or support from the record is, by itself, insufficient to

create a genuine factual issue. But it is the “conclusory

allegations of [such] an affidavit,” not its self-serving nature,

that render it inadequate. Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497

U.S. 871, 888 (1990).

Camara’s declaration is specific enough. He stated that he

“reviewed the form arbitration agreement” Mastro’s attached to

Carcamo’s declaration but did not recognize it and did not sign

it during the course of his employment. J.A. 52. There is not

much more that Camara could reasonably be expected to assert

in opposing Mastro’s motion. The summary judgment standard

does not require him to prove a negative. Rather, he needed

only to offer evidence sufficient to create a genuine dispute

about whether he agreed to be bound by the company’s

arbitration policy. He did so.

Mastro’s also suggests that the only thing supporting

Camara’s position is his declaration. Not so. The company’s

failure to produce an arbitration agreement containing Camara’s

signature after the company searched for such a document

makes it more likely that no such document exists, which in turn

makes it less likely that Camara agreed to arbitrate disputes. In

other words, the absence of a signed agreement in these

circumstances is relevant evidence under Rule 401 of the

Federal Rules of Evidence.

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According to Mastro’s, even if Camara did not sign the

arbitration agreement, his conduct is sufficient to bind him to its

terms. The company thus urges us to determine that an impliedin-fact arbitration contract existed between Mastro’s and

Camara. Both parties agree that District of Columbia law

governs. Under D.C. law, an implied-in-fact contract contains

“all necessary elements of a binding agreement,” differing from

other contracts “only in that it has not been committed to

writing” and is instead “inferred from the conduct of the

parties.” Boyd v. Kilpatrick Townsend &Stockton, 164 A.3d 72,

81 (D.C. 2017) (citation and quotation marks omitted).

Unless Camara was aware that he was signaling an intent to

be bound, Mastro’s argument fails. See Restatement (Second)

of Contracts § 19(2) (1981) (a party’s conduct is not a

manifestation of his assent unless “he intends to engage in the

conduct and knows or has reason to know that the other party

may infer from his conduct that he assents”). Nothing in the

record negates Camara’s sworn declaration that he was unaware

of the agreement’s existence and had no reason to believe he had

relinquished his right to a trial. There is no evidence, for

instance, that a manager or a co-worker discussed the arbitration

agreement with him. In the absence of this or similar evidence,

a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Camara was unaware

of the agreement during the course of his work at Mastro’s, and

that he therefore had no reason to believe his continued

employment could be seen as an intent to be bound by the

agreement. At the least, there is a genuine issue of material fact

about any implied contract.

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of

Mastro’s motion to compel arbitration.

So ordered.

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