NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

OXY

- HEALTH, LLC, a California Limited Liability Company,

Plaintiff

- Appellee,

v. H2 ENTERPRISES, INC., DBA oxychambers.com, a California Corporation; CHING WEN YEH, DBA oxychambers.com, AKA Wen Yeh, an individual,
Defendants

- Appellants. No. 19

- 55986
D.C. No. 2:18

- cv - 04066

- MWF

- SS

MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Michael W. Fitzgerald, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted July 9, 2020 * * Pasadena, California Before: BERZON and COLLINS, Circuit Judges, and KATZMANN, ** * Judge.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable Gary S. Katzmann, Judge for the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation. 

# FILED

JUL 20 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

Plaintiff Oxy

- Heal th , LLC, brought trademark infringement and related
claims against its former employee Ching Wen Yeh and his business, H2 Enterprises (collectively, “Wen”) . Wen appeal s t he district court ’s order den ying
hi s motion to compel arbitration

. A district court ’ s denial of a motion to compel arbitration is reviewed de

novo
. Kilgore v. KeyBank, Nat

. Ass ’ n , 718 F.3d 1052, 1057 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc). “ Notwithstanding the federal policy favoring it, arbitration is a matter of contract and a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed so to submit.” Tracer Research Corp. v. Nat’l Envtl. Servs. Co. , 42 F.3d 1292, 1294 (9th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]e must look to the express terms of the agreements at issue to determine whether [the parties] intended that [the] claims be arbitrated.” Ferguson v. Corinthian Colleges,
Inc. , 733 F.3d 928, 938 (9th Cir. 2013) (citation omitted).
1. The district court properly interpreted the scope of the arbitration agreement in Wen’s employee handbook as limited to employment

- related disputes. By its own terms, the agreement is limited to the employment relationship: Oxy

- Health “promise [ d ] to arbitrate all employment

- related disputes ” ; Wen agree d to arbi trate disputes “arising out of, relating to, or resulting from [his] employment with the company ” ; and the list of examples of claims covered
includes statutes concerning employment issues. The district court properly held3

that the provision stating that “ this agreement to arbitrate also applies to any disputes that the company may have with you , ” read in context, is limited to employment

- related disputes. This limitation is necessary to “give effect to every part” of the agreement, “each clause helping to interpret the other.” See Comedy Club, Inc. v. Improv West Assocs ., 553 F.3d 1277, 1285 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting Cal. Civ. Code § 1641 )

. 2. The district court properly concluded that Oxy

- Health’s trademark

- based claims are not covered by the arbitration agreement because they did not arise out of, relate to, or result from Wen’s prior employment with Oxy

- Health

. Oxy

H ealth’s trademark

- based claims focus on Wen’s use of the allegedly infringing mark “oxychambers.com” and can be resolved entirel y without reference to Wen’s former employment by Oxy

- Health. See Simula, Inc. v. Autoliv, Inc ., 175 F.3d 716, 721 (9th Cir. 1999) ( an arbitration agreement with the language here “ reach es every dispute between the parties having a significant relationship to the contract and all disputes having their origin or genesis in the contract ”). Although the parties apparently dispute whether Wen’s ownership of that mark is wrongful, that
issue has no bearing on Oxy

- Health’s trademark

- related claims as presently pleaded in the complaint. Because none of the complaint’s allegations “ touch
matters ” that are employment

- related and thus covered by the arbitration4

agreement , the district court properly d enied the motion to compel arbitration. See
id. ; Tracer , 42 F.3d at 129 5

. AFFIRMED
.