§ 1281.99.Sanctions

This section supplies the enforcement teeth behind the fee-payment-default rules in §§ 1281.97 and 1281.98. Whenever a drafting party materially breaches an arbitration agreement under either of those sections, the court has no discretion to skip a sanction -- it must order the drafting party to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney's fees and costs, that the employee or consumer incurred because of the breach.

Beyond that mandatory monetary sanction, the court may add further consequences, unless it finds the drafting party acted with substantial justification or that some other circumstance would make an added sanction unjust. Those additional sanctions include an evidence sanction barring the drafting party from conducting discovery in the civil action, and a terminating sanction -- either striking the drafting party's pleadings, in whole or part, or entering a default judgment against it. The court can also treat the drafting party as in contempt of court.

Together, these sanctions give real weight to the obligation §§ 1281.97 and 1281.98 impose: a company that writes an arbitration clause into its contracts and then doesn't pay to make that arbitration happen faces a mandatory fee award, and potentially discovery limits, a default judgment, or a contempt finding on top of it.