I. The Five-Minute Trap

Evangelina Yanez Fuentes needed a job. When she applied to Empire Nissan, she was handed a standard employment application packet and told she had five minutes to complete it. The packet included a document titled “Applicant Statement and Agreement.” Buried within that document was a provision mandating arbitration of “all disputes which may arise out of the employment context.”

The document was printed in a font so small and blurry that it was nearly illegible. The arbitration provision alone was a single paragraph of approximately 900 words, crammed into roughly three vertical inches of space. The text was dense, complex, and filled with legal jargon and statutory references. As the California Supreme Court later observed, quoting from a prior case, the document was “visually impenetrable” to the point that it “challenge[s] the limits of legibility.”

Fuentes spent most of her five minutes filling out the employment application itself. She was told the documents in the packet related to her job application, contacting her references, and a drug testing requirement. She was told she had to complete the documents to work for Empire Nissan and that she should hurry because the drug testing facility was about to close. She was not offered an opportunity to ask questions. She did not receive a copy of what she signed.

Two and a half years later, Fuentes requested a brief extension of her medical leave to complete cancer treatment before returning to work. Empire Nissan terminated her employment. When she filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Empire Nissan moved to compel arbitration, citing the clause Fuentes had signed during the application process.

Fuentes opposed the motion, arguing the agreement was unconscionable and unenforceable due to its illegibility, the oppressive circumstances under which it was signed, and one-sided terms favoring the employer. The trial court agreed and denied Empire Nissan’s motion. The Court of Appeal reversed. The California Supreme Court granted review to resolve a conflict among appellate courts regarding whether illegibility could support a finding of substantive unconscionability.

“A layperson trying to navigate this block text, printed in tiny font, would not have an easy journey.”

II. The Legal Standard: Procedural and Substantive Unconscionability

Under California law, a contract is unconscionable if it involves both procedural and substantive unfairness. The procedural element examines “the circumstances of contract negotiation and formation,” including “oppression or surprise due to unequal bargaining power.” The substantive element examines “the fairness of an agreement’s actual terms,” asking whether those terms “are overly harsh or one-sided.”

Both elements must be present, but they need not be present to the same degree. Courts apply a sliding scale: the more procedurally unconscionable a contract’s formation, the less substantive unconscionability is required to render it unenforceable, and vice versa. Where there is “a high degree of procedural unconscionability,” as the Supreme Court found here, “even a relatively low degree of substantive unconscionability may suffice to render the agreement unenforceable.”

The trial court had found a “very high degree” of procedural unconscionability based on the agreement’s illegibility, the lack of meaningful opportunity to review or negotiate, and the economic pressure inherent in the job application process. It found a “low to moderate degree” of substantive unconscionability based on the illegibility of the “fine-print terms” and an apparent carve-out from arbitration for claims that only Empire Nissan would bring.

The Court of Appeal disagreed. It held that illegibility is relevant only to procedural unconscionability, not substantive unconscionability, and that the trial court had improperly “double counted” the illegibility issue. It further held that the confidentiality agreements Fuentes signed later did not create a one-sided carve-out because they were not signed by Empire Nissan’s president, as required by the arbitration agreement’s modification clause. Based on these holdings, the Court of Appeal reversed and directed the trial court to grant Empire Nissan’s motion to compel arbitration.

III. The Supreme Court’s Ruling: Illegibility Triggers Heightened Scrutiny

The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and remanded the case for further proceedings. In a 6-1 opinion authored by Justice Groban, the Court clarified the role of illegibility in the unconscionability analysis.

The Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that illegibility, by itself, does not render a contract substantively unconscionable. Font size and formatting affect the procedure by which a contract is formed—contributing to the element of “surprise”—but they do not affect the substance of the contract’s terms. As the Court explained, “An otherwise fair and mutual term is not made substantively unconscionable by printing it in a manner that makes it difficult to read.”

However, the Court held that when a contract is formed under circumstances involving a high degree of procedural unconscionability, courts must “closely scrutinize the substantive terms ‘to ensure they are not manifestly unfair or one-sided.'” In other words, illegibility does not count twice—once for procedural and once for substantive unconscionability—but it does raise the bar for fairness on the substantive side.

The Court rejected the Court of Appeal’s reliance on “the principle that the law strongly favors arbitration” as a basis for interpreting the confidentiality agreements as requiring arbitration of Empire Nissan’s claims. The Court clarified that the policy favoring arbitration “is not one of promoting arbitration over litigation, but instead of ensuring that arbitration agreements are not disfavored, i.e., that they are treated like other contracts.” When a contract is formed under highly procedurally unconscionable circumstances, treating it “like other contracts” means construing ambiguities against the drafting party and closely scrutinizing its terms for unfairness.

The Court also held that the Court of Appeal erred by directing the trial court to grant Empire Nissan’s motion to compel arbitration, rather than remanding for the trial court to consider Fuentes’s alternative argument that the agreement was invalid due to lack of mutual assent. The trial court had declined to reach this argument because it found the agreement unconscionable. The Court of Appeal’s disposition implicitly foreclosed the trial court from considering it on remand, which was error.

“The agreement’s formatting and the way Empire Nissan presented it to Fuentes ‘did not promote voluntary or informed agreement to its terms.’ Indeed, even after she signed it, discerning its substance would have involved an investment of effort and expense—obtaining a copy, deciphering its almost illegible print, and hiring a lawyer—that an employee would be unlikely to make until a serious employment dispute arose.”

IV. The Confidentiality Agreement Carve-Out

One of Fuentes’s arguments for substantive unconscionability was that the arbitration agreement, when read together with two confidentiality agreements she signed later, was unfairly one-sided. The confidentiality agreements prohibited Fuentes from disclosing Empire Nissan’s confidential information and authorized Empire Nissan to seek “any proper injunction” and “any other remedies available . . . at law or in equity” if she breached them. They also provided that if “legal action is taken to enforce” the agreements, the prevailing party is entitled to attorney fees and costs. The confidentiality agreements stated they “supersede any and all prior agreements” on the covered subjects.

Fuentes argued these provisions created a carve-out from the arbitration agreement for claims that only Empire Nissan would bring—claims for breach of the confidentiality agreements. Empire Nissan countered that the confidentiality agreements did not modify the arbitration agreement because they were not “in writing and signed by the President of the Company,” as the arbitration agreement required for any modification. The copies of the confidentiality agreements in the appellate record were not signed by Empire Nissan’s president.

The Court of Appeal relied on the missing signature to conclude that no carve-out existed. The California Supreme Court held that this conclusion “lacks an adequate factual foundation.” The Court observed that Fuentes had no reason to seek discovery on the signature issue in the trial court, because Empire Nissan did not raise it as a defense. The Court of Appeal’s assumption that “the president never signed” the confidentiality agreements was therefore unsupported by the record.

The Supreme Court further held that the issue of whether the confidentiality agreements created a one-sided carve-out turns on whether they were signed by the president, and that the trial court should be permitted to address this issue on remand, with the opportunity for further factual development and briefing if necessary.

In a footnote, the Court noted that relying on the missing signature to avoid a finding of unconscionability could raise its own fairness concerns, as it might permit Empire Nissan to “have it both ways”—disclaiming the confidentiality agreements when Fuentes argues they render the arbitration agreement one-sided, but invoking them if Empire Nissan ever wanted to sue Fuentes in court for breach of confidentiality.

V. The Non-Financial Ledger: Dignity, Autonomy, and the Right to Be Heard

This case is not about money. It is about power.

Evangelina Yanez Fuentes worked for Empire Nissan for two and a half years. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she went on medical leave. When she asked for a brief extension of that leave to complete her treatment, she was fired. She believes her termination was unlawful. She wanted her day in court.

Empire Nissan’s position is that she gave up that right when she signed the application packet—in five minutes, under time pressure, without an opportunity to ask questions or negotiate, without receiving a copy, in text so small and blurry that the state’s highest court described it as “visually impenetrable.”

The doctrine of unconscionability exists to prevent exactly this kind of abuse. It recognizes that not all contracts are the product of genuine agreement. Some contracts are the product of coercion. Some are the product of trickery. Some are the product of a deliberate strategy to bury unfavorable terms in text so small that no reasonable person could read it in the time provided.

What was taken from Fuentes was not just access to the courthouse. It was her autonomy. Her ability to make an informed choice about how disputes with her employer would be resolved. Her right to know what she was agreeing to.

The California Supreme Court has now made clear that this matters. That courts must look closely at contracts formed under these conditions. That illegibility is not just a cosmetic issue. That when a worker is handed a nearly unreadable contract and told to sign it in five minutes or lose the job, that is not consent. That is surrender.

“It is hard to understand why an employer would present an important legal agreement to its employees in such a form.”

VI. Legal Receipts: The Court’s Own Words

“The document is printed in a very small font and its text is so blurry and broken up that it is nearly unreadable. Its arbitration provision is a lengthy, densely printed paragraph consisting of complex sentences filled with legal jargon and statutory references.”
— California Supreme Court, Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. (2026) S280256, p. 2

“Empire Nissan did not provide Fuentes a meaningful opportunity to review the agreement or ask questions about it, much less to negotiate its terms. When presented with the application packet, Fuentes was told she should hurry because the drug testing facility was about to close. The company gave her only five minutes to complete the packet.”
— Id. at p. 8

“The formation of Fuentes’s agreement involved an unusually high degree of surprise. The agreement is printed in a tiny, blurry font, making it very difficult to read. Once the text is deciphered, the agreement’s language presents a further barrier to understanding: The reader is confronted with a collection of complex sentences replete with legal jargon and statutory references.”
— Id. at p. 9

“The agreement’s formatting and the way Empire Nissan presented it to Fuentes ‘did not promote voluntary or informed agreement to its terms.’ Indeed, even after she signed it, discerning its substance would have involved an investment of effort and expense—obtaining a copy, deciphering its almost illegible print, and hiring a lawyer—that an employee would be unlikely to make until a serious employment dispute arose.”
— Id. at p. 10

“We hold that a contract’s format generally is irrelevant to the substantive unconscionability analysis, which focuses on the fairness of the contract’s terms, but that courts must closely scrutinize the terms of difficult-to-read contracts for unfairness or one-sidedness.”
— Id. at p. 1

VII. Societal Impact Mapping

A. Economic Inequality: The Weaponization of Fine Print

Forced arbitration clauses are ubiquitous in employment contracts. A 2019 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that 60.1 million American workers—more than half of all private-sector non-union employees—are subject to mandatory arbitration agreements. These agreements are disproportionately imposed on low-wage workers, women, and workers of color.

The use of illegible fine print to bury arbitration clauses is not an accident. It is a deliberate strategy to prevent workers from understanding what they are signing and to insulate employers from legal accountability. When workers cannot read the terms of their employment, they cannot make informed decisions about whether to accept a job offer. When they cannot access the courts, they cannot vindicate their rights, even when those rights are clear.

The result is a two-tiered system of justice: one for workers who can afford to hire lawyers to decipher unreadable contracts and navigate the arbitration process, and one for everyone else.

B. Public Health: The Cancer Patient Who Was Fired

Evangelina Yanez Fuentes was undergoing treatment for cancer when she was fired. The stress of a wrongful termination lawsuit—compounded by the stress of fighting to have that lawsuit heard in court rather than arbitration—is not a neutral event. It has physical and psychological consequences.

Research has consistently shown that chronic stress weakens the immune system, interferes with cancer treatment, and worsens health outcomes. A 2020 study published in Psycho-Oncology found that cancer patients experiencing employment-related stress had significantly worse quality of life and higher rates of depression and anxiety.

Empire Nissan’s use of an illegible arbitration clause to block Fuentes’s lawsuit is not just a legal maneuver. It is an additional injury inflicted on someone already fighting for her life.

C. Environmental Degradation: Not Applicable

This case does not involve environmental harm.

VIII. The “Cost of a Life” Metric

IX. What Now?

The California Supreme Court has remanded this case to the Los Angeles County Superior Court for further proceedings. The trial court will now reconsider whether the arbitration agreement is enforceable in light of the Supreme Court’s clarified legal standard.

If you are facing a similar situation, here is what you need to know:

The Law

• A contract is unconscionable if it involves both procedural and substantive unfairness.
• Procedural unconscionability includes “oppression” (lack of meaningful choice) and “surprise” (hidden or hard-to-understand terms).
• Substantive unconscionability means the contract’s terms are “overly harsh or one-sided.”
• Illegibility is evidence of procedural unconscionability (surprise) but not, by itself, substantive unconscionability.
• When a contract is formed under highly procedurally unconscionable circumstances, courts must closely scrutinize its terms for unfairness and construe ambiguities against the drafting party.

What You Can Do

If you signed an employment agreement you could not read, or that you were pressured to sign without time to review, you may be able to challenge it. Contact an employment lawyer immediately. Many work on contingency, meaning you do not pay unless you win.

Support organizations fighting for workers’ rights: Public Justice, the National Employment Law Project, and state-level worker centers. Advocate for legislation requiring employment contracts to meet minimum legibility and plain-language standards, and banning forced arbitration clauses in employment agreements.

If you are currently job hunting and are handed an arbitration agreement, ask for time to review it and consult a lawyer. Ask for a copy. If the employer refuses, that is a red flag. Consider whether you want to work for an employer that does not respect your right to understand what you are signing.

Organize. Talk to your coworkers. Forced arbitration clauses are designed to isolate workers and prevent them from holding employers accountable. Collective action is the antidote.