Whether a contractual limitations period barred plaintiff-former employee’s claims; Applicability to an abuse of process claim; Unconscionability; Clark v DaimlerChrysler Corp; Estoppel; Effect of alleged violation of the Bullard-Plawecki Employee Right to Know Act (ERKA); MCL 423.502 & 423.503

Holding that the Employee Handbook Acknowledgment plaintiff-former employee signed agreeing to a six-month limitations period applied to all her claims against defendant, the court affirmed the dismissal of her case on the basis she filed it outside the shortened limitations period. She contended that the Acknowledgment was not enforceable because it was “unconscionable and, alternatively, defendant should be estopped from relying on it because defendant violated the ERKA.” In addition, she asserted that it did not apply to her abuse of process claim “because defendant’s pursuit of criminal charges was not an ‘employment action,’ given that her claim did not accrue until after her termination.” But the court noted that the Acknowledgment’s language was broad—it applied “to ‘any claim or lawsuit arising out of [her] employment . . . with defendant[;]’ the term ‘employment action’ that plaintiff relies on does not define the claims to which the shortened limitations period applies, but rather, relates to the accrual date of the claim.” The court also noted that she argued “defendant’s ulterior purpose of the criminal proceedings was to justify plaintiff’s termination and create a pretext to obscure that her termination was retaliatory. Because the factual allegations of plaintiff’s abuse-of-process claim are related to, and result from, her employment with defendant,” it was a claim arising out of her employment. Thus, the shortened limitations period also applied to this claim. As to unconscionability, there was no evidence to support that, when she signed the agreement about a week after beginning her job, “plaintiff had no realistic alternative to employment with defendant. While plaintiff’s bargaining power may have been less than defendant’s—accepting her claim that she could not negotiate the terms—nothing in the record” showed she was not free to accept or reject the offered terms. The circumstances did “not support a determination of procedural unconscionability” and the court further concluded that nothing in the record established “that the Acknowledgement was substantively unconscionable.” It also agreed with the trial court that she failed to show “defendant should be estopped from relying on the Acknowledgment for violating the ERKA.”