The state Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review a Berkeley tobacco shop case and decide whether property owners in California can sign away their right to a jury trial in contract disputes.

The court voted unanimously to grant a hearing of an appeal by a New York company that leased credit card processing equipment to Big Al’s Smokeshop and Whelan’s Cigar Store in 2015. When the managers of both stores claimed fraud three months later and sued to cancel the deal, the company, Lease Finance Group, said any disputes would have to be heard in New York under a provision of the lease that also waived any right to a jury trial.

In October, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned an Alameda County judge’s ruling dismissing the suit and said the waiver was unenforceable because the California Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial.

A person or business that signs a lease or any other contract relinquishing that right can agree to forgo a jury once a lawsuit gets to court, but a jury trial cannot be denied merely because of language in the contract, the court said in a 3-0 decision.

Citing a 2005 state Supreme Court ruling on jury waivers, the appellate panel said, “Because the right to jury trial in California is a fundamental right that may only be waived as prescribed by the Legislature, courts cannot enforce pre-dispute agreements to waive a jury trial.”

The state’s high court set that ruling aside Tuesday and will hear the case at a later date.

In seeking review, Lease Finance Group said the appellate decision would undermine interstate companies’ right to enforce contracts in California that call for future legal disputes to be heard in other states, including those that allow jury trial waivers.

The ruling, if upheld, would affect the contracts and future decisions of “untold numbers of businesses and persons nationwide,” attorney Daniel B. Harris said in a court filing. “If deprived of their bargained-for protections, they will change the way they do business in California or may elect not to do business here at all.”

Edward Higginbotham, a lawyer for the cigar store owners, said Tuesday that courts should not allow companies doing business in California to “usurp people’s rights” with contracts that include jury trial waivers in small print.

“We just want what we feel the California Constitution entitles us to, which is to be heard by a jury of our peers in our state,” he said.

The case is Handoush vs. Lease Finance Group, S259523.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko