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Parties Involved:
Enrique Collado
Appellee
Juan Giron
Appellee
J. & G. Transport, Inc.
Appellant
Danny Rhinehart
Appellee
Joel Rubio
Appellee
Antonio Woodson
Appellee

Document Text:

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-14635

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 9:14-cv-80467-JG

ENRIQUE COLLADO, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

JUAN GIRON, 

and others similarly situated,

JOEL RUBIO, 

ANTONIO WOODSON, 

DANNY RHINEHART, et al., 

 Plaintiffs,

versus

J. & G. TRANSPORT, INC.,

 Defendant-Appellant,

IVIS GUZMAN,

individually, et al., 

 Defendants.

USCA11 Case: 15-14635 Date Filed: 04/21/2016 Page: 1 of 10
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________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(April 21, 2016)

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, WILLIAM PRYOR, and FAY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Enrique Collado filed a collective action lawsuit under the Fair Labor 

Standards Act alleging that J. & G. Transport, Inc. (J&G) failed to pay its truck 

drivers for overtime work.

1

 J&G waived its contractual right to compel arbitration

by participating in the litigation, but when Collado amended his complaint to add

state law claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit, J&G moved to compel 

arbitration as to those new claims. The district court denied the motion to compel 

arbitration, finding that the addition of the state law claims did not unexpectedly 

change the scope or theory of the litigation to an extent that would give J&G the 

authority to insist on arbitration of those new claims. This is J&G’s interlocutory 

appeal of that ruling. See 9 U.S.C. § 16(a)(1).

I.

In June 2014 Collado filed an amended complaint alleging that he had 

worked for J&G as a truck driver hauling garbage, debris, and mulch from 

 1 Collado also named two of J&G’s corporate officers, but they are not parties to this 

appeal. 

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July 2013 into January 2014, during which time he worked about 85 hours per 

week. According to Collado, J&G made its truck drivers sign an independent 

contractor agreement in a scheme to evade the FLSA’s overtime wage 

requirements. He sought compensatory and liquidated damages for the purported 

failure to pay him and similarly situated employees the overtime wages required by 

the FLSA.

2

 

Immediately after the close of discovery and shortly before trial was 

scheduled to begin, Collado moved to file a second amended complaint seeking to 

add state law claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit. He asserted that 

an addendum to the agreement provided that his compensation was to be 35% of 

the adjusted gross revenue received by J&G for loads that he accepted and 

completed, but that on the last day of discovery J&G had disclosed documents 

showing that he was actually paid less than that. And, he continued, it was not 

until after discovery ended that J&G explained, in response to an interrogatory, its 

position that the addendum did not apply to Collado because of the type of loads he 

was hauling. 

J&G opposed the motion to amend the complaint, arguing that Collado 

should not be permitted to file a second amended complaint so close to trial 

 2 Collado’s initial complaint and first amended complaint also raised an FLSA claim 

relating to J&G’s purported failure to pay him and other drivers the minimum wage. Because he 

dropped that claim in his second amended complaint, we do not address it.

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because he had been aware of the potential breach of contract claim for some time. 

It pointed to allegations in Collado’s first amended complaint, filed a year earlier,

and asserted that they showed that he had been aware of a potential breach of 

contract claim at that time. J&G also argued that shortly after Collado filed his 

first amended complaint, one of its corporate officers testified in deposition that the

compensation rate provided in the addendum did not apply to drivers like Collado, 

which put Collado on notice of the potential claim well before he moved to amend 

his complaint. J&G contended that it would be a waste of judicial resources to 

permit amendment only to later compel arbitration of the state law claims. 

The district court granted Collado’s motion to file a second amended 

complaint, finding that he could not have discovered the potential breach of 

contract claim until he learned how much money J&G earned per haul. After 

Collado filed his second amended complaint, J&G immediately moved to dismiss 

the new state law claims or, in the alternative, to compel arbitration of those 

claims. J&G conceded that it had waived arbitration of Collado’s FLSA claim but 

argued that the second amendment to his complaint revived its right to elect 

arbitration of the state law claims because those new claims unexpectedly 

broadened the scope of the case. 

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The district court denied J&G’s motion. It concluded that while Collado’s

second amended complaint altered the theory of the case, the alteration was not 

unexpected and fairness did not compel reviving J&G’s right to elect arbitration. 

II.

We review de novo a district court’s denial of a motion to compel 

arbitration. Klay v. All Defendants, 389 F.3d 1191, 1200 (11th Cir. 2004). The 

law is that arbitration agreements “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. Federal policy strongly favors enforcing arbitration 

agreements. See, e.g., Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 

U.S. 1, 24–25, 103 S. Ct. 927, 941 (1983); Krinsk v. SunTrust Banks, Inc., 654 

F.3d 1194, 1200 n.17, 1203 (11th Cir. 2011); Ivax Corp. v. B. Braun of Am., Inc., 

286 F.3d 1309, 1315 (11th Cir. 2002). But “courts will not compel arbitration 

when the party who seeks to arbitrate has waived its right to do so.” Krinsk, 654 

F.3d at 1200. In limited circumstances, however, where a party has waived the 

right to compel arbitration, an amended complaint can revive that right “if it is 

shown that the amended complaint unexpectedly changes the scope or theory of 

the plaintiff’s claims.” Id. at 1202. 

J&G concedes that it waived its right to compel arbitration with respect to 

Collado’s FLSA claim but contends that it has the right to compel arbitration of the 

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state law claims that were not pleaded until after it had litigated to the point of 

waiver the FLSA claim. The pleading of the state law claims in the second 

amended complaint, it argues, unexpectedly changed the scope or theory of the 

litigation.

3 Collado does not dispute that his second amended complaint changed 

the scope or theory of the litigation, but he argues that it still did not revive J&G’s 

right to compel arbitration because that change was not unexpected.

The parties rely on our Krinsk decision as the closest precedent on point, but 

that case is not quite the same as this one. In the Krinsk case, the plaintiff brought 

a class action lawsuit against the defendant, estimating that the class would consist 

of hundreds of class members. Id. at 1197–98. The defendant waived the right to 

compel arbitration by engaging in the judicial process. Id. at 1198–99, 1202. The 

plaintiff later amended the complaint, asserting “revised, but mostly similar, 

claims,” and expanding the class definition so that it included “thousands—if not 

tens of thousands” of potential class members. Id. at 1199. The defendant filed a 

motion to compel arbitration, which the district court denied. Id. at 1199–1200.

We vacated that order, holding that the amended complaint revived the defendant’s 

 3 J&G relies heavily on an unpublished decision from this Court, Plaintiffs’ Shareholders 

Corp. v. Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co., 486 F. App’x 786, 787–88 (11th Cir. 2012). 

Unpublished decisions are not binding authority and they are “persuasive only to the extent that a 

subsequent panel finds the rationale expressed in that opinion to be persuasive after an 

independent consideration of the legal issue.” Twin City Fire Ins. Co. v. Ohio Cas. Ins. Co., 480 

F.3d 1254, 1260 n.3 (11th Cir. 2007). 

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right to compel arbitration because the defendant could not have foreseen such a 

major change to the definition of the class. Id. at 1204. 

This case is different from Krinsk because the amended complaint in that 

case “asserted revised, but mostly similar, claims.” Id. at 1199. It did not plead 

any new claims. The change that motivated the Krinsk decision was, instead, the 

substantial increase in the size of the plaintiff class and the resulting increase in the 

size of the defendant’s potential liability. The defendant had waived the right to 

arbitrate the claims of hundreds of plaintiffs, but it had not waived the right to 

arbitrate the claims of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of plaintiffs. Id. at 

1198–99, 1204. 

The change wrought by the amendment in this case was not in the number of 

plaintiffs but in the type of claim asserted. The case began as one asserting a 

federal claim. Only after J&G had waived by litigation its right to arbitrate that 

claim did Collado file the amendment changing the case to one asserting both 

federal and state claims. Waiver of the right to arbitrate a federal claim does not 

extend to later asserted state claims. Some cases speak of revival of a waived right 

to arbitrate. See, e.g., id. at 1202–03 (collecting cases). In these circumstances, 

however, it is more accurate to say that there was never a waiver of the right to 

arbitrate the state claims in the first place. 

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A Seventh Circuit case is instructive. In Dickinson v. Heinold Securities, 

Inc., 661 F.2d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 1981), the plaintiff filed an initial complaint 

raising two claims. The first count presented a non-arbitrable federal securities 

claim. Id. The second count incorporated by reference the federal securities claim 

and also alleged that the defendant’s conduct violated the parties’ agreement, but it 

did not expressly raise a breach of contract claim, which would have been 

arbitrable. Id. Almost a year after filing the initial complaint, as the parties 

engaged in discovery, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint clarifying that only 

the first count raised a federal securities claim and asserting that the second count 

was a state law breach of contract claim. Id. at 640–41. The amended complaint 

also raised two other state law claims. Id. The defendant moved to stay the 

proceedings pending arbitration of the state law claims. Id. at 641.

The Seventh Circuit determined that even though “the complaint might 

eventually have been construed, within the loose strictures of notice pleading, as 

stating a claim for breach of contract,” it was reasonable for the defendant to 

assume that the complaint raised only non-arbitrable federal securities claims. Id.

at 641–42. As a result, the defendant had not waived its right to compel arbitration 

of the state law claims — not even for the breach of contract claim alluded to, but 

not clearly stated, in the original complaint. Id. 

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As in Dickinson, J&G did not waive the right to arbitrate the state law 

claims raised in the second amended complaint because those claims were not in 

the case when it waived by litigation the right to arbitrate the FLSA claim. If 

anything, this case is even more clear-cut than Dickinson because the initial 

complaint in that case arguably raised a state law claim, see id. at 640, while 

Collado’s first amended complaint clearly did not.

J&G did argue, in response to Collado’s motion to file a second amended 

complaint, that his first amended complaint “reveal[ed] that a potential breach of 

contract action was an issue then known to Collado[ ].” From that Collado argues 

that J&G must also have known there was a state law claim lurking in the case. 

But knowing that a potential claim may lurk in the shadows of a case is not the 

same as litigating against a claim that has been brought out into the open in a 

pleading. A defendant is not required to litigate against potential but unasserted

claims. By the same token, a defendant will not be held to have waived the right to 

insist that previously unasserted claims be arbitrated once they are asserted. Any 

other rule would put a defendant in an awkward if not absurd position. A 

defendant who was willing to litigate the claim pleaded against it would need to 

identify all of the possible claims that could have been but weren’t pleaded against 

it and file a motion insisting that those unpleaded claims be arbitrated. Otherwise, 

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under Collado’s approach, the defendant would waive the right to arbitrate those 

claims if they ever were pleaded. 

We hold that J&G’s waiver through litigation of the right to arbitrate 

Collado’s FLSA claim does not extend to the state law claims that were pleaded

for the first time after J&G had litigated to the point of waiver the FLSA claim. 

See Morewitz v. W. of Eng. Ship Owners Mut. Prot. & Indem. Ass’n, 62 F.3d 

1356, 1366 (11th Cir. 1995) (“Waiver occurs when a party seeking arbitration 

substantially participates in litigation to a point inconsistent with an intent to 

arbitrate and this participation results in prejudice to the opposing party.”); see also

Brown v. ITT Consumer Fin. Corp., 211 F.3d 1217, 1223 (11th Cir. 2000) 

(concluding that the defendant did not waive its right to arbitrate because its 

“demand for arbitration was made promptly after the lawsuit was filed”). 

We VACATE the district court’s order denying J&G’s motion to compel 

arbitration of the state law claims and REMAND the case for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion.

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