Tuufuli: An Express FAA Choice Governed a California Employment Agreement

In Tuufuli v. West Coast Dental Administrative Services, LLC, No. B338584 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 13, 2026), the court enforced the parties’ express choice of the Federal Arbitration Act. The employee argued that her California work did not involve interstate commerce. The court held that the agreement’s selection of the FAA supplied an independent basis for applying it, so the alternative commerce question did not need to be decided. The trial court had found a valid agreement; the appeal focused on which law governed its enforcement.

Current status: On March 25, 2026, the California Supreme Court granted review in Tuufuli, No. S295323, and deferred action pending related issues in Barbosa v. Sierra Pacific Orthopaedic Center Medical Group, No. S294710. The current docket lists Tuufuli as held for that lead case. The Court of Appeal opinion remains published but is not binding. Rule 8.1115 permits potentially persuasive citation and the limited conflict-of-authority use described in its comment, subject to Supreme Court orders. This article explains the January 13 reasoning while that review remains pending. See the March 25 order, page 353, and the official opinion entry.

The agreement selected federal law and limited class proceedings

West Coast Dental managed business operations for affiliated dental practices. It hired Sinedou Tuufuli as a collector and customer-service representative in August 2017. Around that time, she electronically signed an agreement requiring arbitration of employment and termination disputes. Its coverage included compensation and statutory claims, and it prohibited the arbitrator from adjudicating class, collective or representative proceedings or consolidating claims without the parties’ consent. Tuufuli, opinion, pages 2–3.

The governing-law provision said the agreement “shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act” and, to the extent that Act permitted, California law. That ordering mattered. The provision did more than mention federal law among several possible authorities: It selected the FAA and made the California-law provision subordinate to that choice.

Tuufuli sued in April 2023, alleging eight individual and class claims under the Labor and Business and Professions Codes. The employer sought individual arbitration and dismissal of the class claims. In March 2024, the trial court found a valid agreement, applied the FAA and granted the motion. On appeal, Tuufuli challenged whether the FAA governed. The opinion identifies that as the only appellate issue. Tuufuli, pages 2–4.

The parties disputed interstate commerce, but the contract supplied another route

The employer submitted a human-resources declaration describing its Delaware incorporation, former Washington offices and purchase of materials from outside California. Tuufuli responded that she worked exclusively in California and rarely, if ever, dealt with out-of-state people or entities. The employer’s reply included a handbook describing California and Washington offices and employees. These were the parties’ competing submissions; the Court of Appeal did not resolve every factual dispute about them. Tuufuli, pages 3–4.

The court explained that FAA section 2 uses the broad phrase “involving commerce.” A party relying on FAA coverage ordinarily must establish it through declarations or other evidence; the parties need not have contemplated interstate activity when they contracted if the transaction actually involved it. The court independently reviewed the governing-law question here, while recognizing that disputed factual findings can receive substantial-evidence review. Tuufuli, pages 5–6.

It then relied on a separate contract principle. Drawing on the California decisions it discussed and the U.S. Supreme Court’s explanation that arbitration rests on consent, the court held that parties may elect FAA governance. The express selection in this agreement resolved the issue presented. The employee’s account of geographically local duties therefore did not answer the contractual-choice ground. Tuufuli, pages 6–7.

Why the employee’s reading of Allied-Bruce did not prevail

Tuufuli argued that contracting parties could not create federal preemption simply by naming the FAA. She relied on Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson. The court examined what that decision had actually resolved: whether FAA coverage depended on the parties having contemplated interstate commerce, or instead on a transaction actually involving it. The Supreme Court had adopted the latter approach. Tuufuli, page 7.

The Court of Appeal reasoned that Allied-Bruce had not decided the different question whether parties could expressly choose FAA governance. It therefore did not establish Tuufuli’s proposed limitation on contractual election. This was an answer to an argument raised in the appeal, rather than a broad reconsideration of every circumstance in which federal law displaces state arbitration procedure. Tuufuli, pages 7–8.

The court distinguished the transportation-worker exclusion

At oral argument, Tuufuli compared section 2 with FAA section 1, which expressly excludes specified transportation-worker employment contracts. The court recognized that an agreement does not become subject to the FAA merely by declaring it applicable when that express worker exclusion governs. It rejected the proposed analogy because section 2 is worded differently: It does not contain an equivalent express exclusion for all contracts lacking an interstate-commerce connection. Tuufuli, pages 8–9.

That distinction matters when reading this decision alongside our analysis of the transportation-worker exclusion. An affirmative statutory exclusion and a dispute about the reach of section 2 are different questions. A worker’s actual duties and the agreement’s fallback language can still matter in a case involving the exclusion, as the separate Donis analysis explains.

The order was affirmed on the express-choice ground

The court affirmed the order compelling arbitration and awarded the employer appellate costs. Because the contract’s FAA selection resolved the question, it expressly declined to decide whether interstate commerce independently supplied coverage. Tuufuli, pages 9–10. The affirmance also left the class-claim disposition in place, but the appellate analysis addressed the governing-law challenge rather than separately deciding every possible objection to the agreement.

This published decision comes from California’s Second District Court of Appeal, Division Eight. Its practical lesson is to read the governing-law provision before treating local work as dispositive. Identify the language actually selected, any state-law fallback, a genuinely applicable statutory exclusion and the particular objection presented to the court. The separate question whether an agreement was formed or is otherwise enforceable requires its own record and analysis. Our employment practice can review the signed agreement and the motion papers together.