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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis may not be a couple anymore, but they do agree that a lawsuit filed by a former nanny who alleges Sudeikis wrongfully terminated her in 2022 should be decided by an arbitrator and not a jury.
Plaintiff Ericka Genaro alleges in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that after Wilde, 39, moved out of the home she shared with Sudeikis, 47, and the actor's son and daughter, her anxiety increased because it dramatically increased her caretaker role in the children's lives.
Genaro alleges discrimination, retaliation and failure to accommodate and engage in the interactive process. Genaro maintains in her declaration that she would not have been hired if she refused to sign the papers and that she is not a lawyer and has no legal training.
"Furthermore, when I signed these documents, I had almost zero experience reviewing contracts," Genaro says.
But in a previously filed sworn declaration supplemented by an additional one brought Aug. 9, Wilde says the plaintiff is indeed bound by the arbitration clause and that Genaro resigned after the actors refused to bow to the nanny's salary demands. Both deny they were unfair to Genaro.
"At no time did I ever receive or deny any request from Genaro to change any part of the agreement, including but not limited to the arbitration provision, before she signed it," Wilde says in her new declaration. "To my knowledge, neither did Jason Sudeikis."
In his declaration, Sudeikis says he and Wilde hired Genaro in November 2018 to be the nanny for their two children in Brooklyn.
"I never received or denied any request from Genaro to negotiate any part of the agreement, including but not limited to the arbitration provision," Sudeikis says. "I never told Genaro that she needed to review the agreement, sign the agreement or return the agreement within any particular period of time."
Genaro says she was told not to review the paperwork with an attorney.
"In fact, I was not given an opportunity nor was I able to review the documents with counsel before I signed and returned them," according to Genaro, who further says that Wilde and Sudeikis did not provide her with a copy of American Arbitration Association rules when she was presented with a confidentiality agreement.
Genaro believes she lost her job because she suffered from anxiety and depression and sought a brief leave to deal with both, her suit filed Feb. 14 states.
But in their motion to compel arbitration set for hearing Aug. 16 before Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis, the actors' attorneys state that Genaro contractually agreed that any disputes related to her employment would be resolved in binding arbitration. The defense lawyers also maintain that Genaro promised to keep confidential what she learned about the family, but she instead sued in "utter disregard" of her obligation to arbitrate disputes and of her confidentiality obligations.
Wilde and Sudeikis never married and split up in November 2020.