Is an arbitration agreement unconscionable because the employee will not be afforded a jury trial or judicial review of the decision?

The assertion that the arbitration agreement is unconscionable because employee will not be afforded a jury trial or judicial review of the decision is equally without merit. "The 'very essence' of arbitration is finality. [Citations.] By choosing arbitration, parties avoid the palaver of procedural challenges that lend, at least for a time, uncertainty to any judgment rendered in the courts.... ' "Conclusiveness is expected; the essence of the arbitration process is that an arbitral award shall put the dispute to rest." ' [Citation.] Or, to put it another way, a nonfinal arbitration is, in the last analysis, an oxymoron. [Citation.]" (Saika v. Gold (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 1074, 1076, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 922.)

Assuming there is an unlawful provision of the arbitration agreement the trial court can strike the offending sections of the contract and order the case to arbitration. (Id., at pp. 1082, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 922 [clause granting doctor unilateral right to trial de novo stricken].) Because the trial court did not adhere to the teachings of Moncharsh v. Heily & Blase, supra, 3 Cal.4th 1, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 183, 832 P.2d 899, and did not exercise its discretion to strike the offending clauses in the agreement, the judgment should be reversed with the direction to either honor it en toto or excise the harsh portions of the agreement that, in theory, may deny employee a fair arbitration.