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The agreement requires employees to use arbitration instead of lawsuits to settle disputes.Arizona law allows a company to impose an arbitration agreement on its employees.
Five former employees have sued the Phoenix Suns and Mercury for workplace discrimination in federal court since November 2024.
The NBA and WNBA franchises have denied the allegations – and made current employees sign an arbitration agreement limiting their ability to sue.
“This policy is standard at most large organizations, including many professional sports teams,” said Stacey Mitch, the Suns’ and Mercury’s senior vice president of communications, in a written statement to The Arizona Republic. “This policy does not result in the waiver of claims.”
The Suns and Mercury told employees this spring that to keep their jobs, they had to sign a dispute resolution agreement, ESPN reported and The Republic confirmed on Sept. 23. Dispute resolution policies outline how a business will handle and resolve internal conflicts, often through mediation or arbitration, as opposed to going to court.
Multiple attorneys told ESPN, which first reported on the new policy, that such agreements are not unusual, but that courts “almost always require” that current employees receive “consideration,” or something in exchange for the altered legal relationship.
But that is not true in Arizona, according to three local labor and employment experts who spoke with The Republic.
“It is well-established in Arizona that continued employment is sufficient consideration for agreements executed after employment begins, without any other benefit to the employee,” said Lindsay Fiore, a labor and employment lawyer with Greenberg Traurig in Phoenix, in an email to The Republic.
“The Arizona Court of Appeals established this concept in 1986 in the case of Mattison v. Johnston, and since that time, several courts have applied its holding specifically to arbitration agreements.”
Denise Blommel, a longtime attorney in Scottsdale and co-author of the State Bar of Arizona’s “Arizona Employment Law Handbook,” concurred and noted that ESPN had quoted an attorney in San Francisco.
“I’m very fond of telling employees who come and gripe to me from other states, ‘You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,’” Blommel told The Republic. “We are as far away from California with respect to employee protection as you can get with the exception of our tremendous earned paid sick time laws, but other than that, this is the Wild West.
“I have to keep reminding people who come here from other states, ‘No, we don’t have the same level of protection for employees.’”
Nathaniel Hill, an employment law attorney and owner of Sun State Legal in Chandler, told The Republic that as long as the arbitration agreement is fair and provides the workers with an opportunity to pursue claims in a reasonable manner in arbitration, “in Arizona, the offer of continued employment is sufficient consideration for these types of agreements.”
“This means that the employer does not need to offer more money or benefits for there to be an enforceable agreement,” Hill said. “They just need to offer continued opportunities for employment.”
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All employment is “at-will” in the private sector in Arizona, meaning an employee can resign or be fired at any time, for any reason or no reason, with certain exceptions, including discrimination, retaliation and violation of a valid contract.
Suns and Mercury employees received an email on May 27 that said they’d receive an updated version of the employee handbook and had to review and agree to the terms within three days, according to documents reviewed by ESPN.
A separate four-page document titled “Confidential information, Intellectual Property, and Dispute Resolution Agreement” was new and noted that agreeing to the terms was “a condition of your offer of employment and/or continued employment.”
Employees were directed to digitally acknowledge their understanding and acceptance of the updated handbook and the dispute resolution agreement.
Signing an employee handbook does not qualify as a valid contract in Arizona, but signing a dispute resolution agreement does, according to legal experts.
The document stated that employees “agree all legal disputes and claims identified below shall be determined exclusively by final and binding individual arbitration,” ESPN reported.
It also said that employment discrimination claims, like the five pending against the Suns and Mercury, would be “submitted exclusively first to confidential mandatory mediation.”
The terms would last beyond the employee’s employment with the company.
There were exceptions for disputes that constitute violations of state or federal laws.
Tips or story ideas? Email sports features and investigative reporter Jason Wolf at jwolf@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @JasonWolf.
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