RadNet Couldn’t Force a Gay Worker’s Claims Into Arbitration

RadNet’s appeal was not a trial over what happened inside the workplace. It was a fight over who would hear the dispute. Decloedt wanted his claims heard in court. Radnet Management, Inc., RadNet, Inc., Radnet Managed Imaging Services, Inc., former supervisor Joe Zambrano and former coworker Susana Ceballos sought to enforce an arbitration agreement he had signed at the beginning of his employment.

Decloedt filed his complaint in October 2024. It contains 11 state-law causes of action, including discrimination, hostile-work-environment harassment, sexual harassment, retaliation, failures to accommodate and prevent harassment, negligent hiring and supervision, wrongful termination, whistleblower retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court denied the motion to compel arbitration on January 16, 2025. The Court of Appeal affirmed that order on June 26, 2026, then certified its opinion for publication on July 7 without changing the judgment.

According to the complaint quoted in the appellate opinion, Ceballos told Decloedt that he should not be gay, that being gay was not acceptable and that it was sinful. He alleged that the comments continued over a period of months.

The allegations went beyond speech. Decloedt claimed that Ceballos frequently became angry when he tried to assist her with client issues, threatened him with statements including “I am so angry, I could kill you,” pulled his hair and, at other times, caressed his hair without permission. In November 2022, the complaint alleges, she grabbed his hair with enough force that he fled to a bathroom.

The Court of Appeal did not find that these events happened. It held that the complaint could reasonably be read as alleging a continuing pattern in which Ceballos’s anti-gay hostility also motivated the aggressive conduct. That reading mattered because the defendants argued that the aggressive incidents arose from disagreements over client interactions, not Decloedt’s sexual orientation.

Decloedt is the directly affected person described in the opinion. His complaint alleges that he repeatedly reported Ceballos’s behavior to Zambrano and patient service representative lead Juan Mercado, but that no action was taken. After the November incident, he says HR called him in over a complaint that he had been disrespectful. He alleges that he then described the physical, sexual and emotional harassment, along with his previous reports.

The most serious alleged consequence was psychological. Decloedt told HR, according to his complaint, that the harassment had taken such a toll that he had contemplated suicide. The complaint also describes an immediate safety consequence: fleeing to a bathroom after Ceballos allegedly grabbed his hair.

Those consequences have not been proven. For the limited purpose of deciding whether the pleading described severe or pervasive harassment, however, the appellate court said they supported a reasonable inference that the alleged conduct disrupted Decloedt’s emotional well-being or ability to work.

Decloedt also alleges that HR abruptly terminated him on February 28, 2023. The appellate decision did not determine why he was fired, whether the termination was connected to his complaints or whether any of his retaliation and wrongful-termination claims will succeed.

The Federal Arbitration Act generally requires courts to enforce covered written arbitration agreements. Congress created an exception through the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, known as the EFAA.

The EFAA allows a person alleging a sexual-harassment dispute to reject a predispute arbitration agreement—an agreement signed before the dispute existed—for a case relating to that dispute. The same appellate division had already held that when at least one claim is covered, the plaintiff’s entire case is exempt from forced arbitration.

That made the legal classification of Decloedt’s allegations decisive. If harassment because of sexual orientation could qualify as sexual harassment under California law, and if his complaint plausibly alleged severe or pervasive conduct, the arbitration agreement could not be enforced against this case.

The appellants advanced two central arguments. First, they maintained that California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, or FEHA, treats sexual-orientation harassment as distinct from sexual harassment. FEHA lists sex and sexual orientation separately among protected characteristics, and the defendants argued that this textual separation should control.

Second, they argued that the allegations were not sufficiently severe or pervasive. They characterized the specifically identified anti-gay language as limited and contended that Ceballos’s alleged threats and aggression arose when Decloedt became involved in her client interactions, not because he was gay.

The supplied opinion records those positions as arguments about statutory interpretation and the sufficiency of the complaint. It does not describe a trial, evidentiary hearing or factual defense resolving what actually happened in the workplace.

The Court of Appeal rejected both arguments. It held that harassment because of sexual orientation is harassment because of sex under FEHA and therefore can constitute sexual harassment for purposes of the federal arbitration exemption.

The court relied in part on the United States Supreme Court’s reasoning in Bostock v. Clayton County: discrimination based on homosexuality necessarily involves sex because the treatment depends partly on the employee’s sex and the sex of the people to whom the employee is attracted. The California court concluded that the same logic applies to harassment.

Sexual harassment, the court explained, doesn’t require sexual desire, sexual propositions or even conduct that is overtly sexual. The relevant question is whether the employee was harassed because of sex. On that reasoning, repeated anti-gay condemnation can fall within the category.

The court also held that Decloedt pleaded enough facts to plausibly allege severe or pervasive harassment. Construing the complaint in his favor, it said the alleged anti-gay remarks, threats, repeated hair pulling, unwanted touching, flight to the bathroom and reported suicidal thoughts could describe a months-long pattern rather than isolated teasing.

Private arbitration overwhelmingly favours the employers over the employees. That’s why your job most likely forced you to waive your right to a trial in favour of private arbitration when you signed on with them. So any development in which an employee gets to avoid arbitration is good for Labour as a whole.