Hernandez v. Ross Stores Lines Up With Other California Cases Refusing To Split PAGA Claims Into Arbitrable And Non-Arbitrable Parts.
In Hernandez v. Ross Stores, Inc., No. E064026 (4/2 12/7/16) (Miller, Hollenhorst, Slough) (unpublished), the Court of Appeal upholds the trial court’s denial of an employer’s motion to compel arbitration of whether an employee is an “aggrieved person” who has standing to sue under the Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA) for Labor Code violations.
In batting back employers’ creative efforts to avoid litigating PAGA claims in court, California state courts have found Williams v. Superior Court, 237 Cal.App.4th 642 (2015) and Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles LLC, 59 Cal. 4th 348 (2014) to be dispositive. Those cases view PAGA claims as representative actions that the employee brings on behalf of the state, which is not a party to the arbitration agreement. The Court explains that forcing the employee to litigate PAGA claims in multiple forums “would thwart the public policy of PAGA to ‘empower employees to enforce the Labor Code’ on bhealf of the state.” Ross Stores, Inc. sought to distinguish Williams, pointing out that the arbitration clause in Williams referred to claims rather than disputes. However, the Court of Appeal concluded that this “is really a distinction without a difference.”
NOTE: On November 30, 2016, I posted about another unpublished opinion, Irving v. Solarcity Corporation, that also concluded the employee couldn’t be forced to arbitrate the “aggrieved person” standing issue under PAGA.
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