Employer Ross Stores, Inc. Had Argued That Law Of The Case Required Trial Judge To Order PAGA Claim To Arbitration.
In Ross Stores, Inc. v. Superior Court (Rachel Goss, Real Party), A150039 (1/1 12/11/17) (Banke, Margulies, Dondero) (unpublished), the Court of Appeal addressed circumstances in which it had earlier required the arbitrability of representative PAGA claims, the Supreme Court later embraced the contrary view in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, 59 Cal.4th 348 (2014), and the employer Ross Stores, Inc. then tried to convince the trial judge that the earlier ruling of the Court of Appeal had become law of the case, requiring arbitration -- notwithstanding Iskanian.
The trial judge did not buy that argument. Neither did the Court of Appeal.
As did the trial court, the Court of Appeal concluded that an exception to the law of the case doctrine applied: the intervening-change-in-the-law exception. And the hands of the trial judge could not be bound by the previous ruling, because the earlier ruling was an unqualified reversal that did not direct the trial court to take any specific action on remand.
Confused? The bottom line is that the Court of Appeal applied Iskanian, holding that the PAGA claim could not be arbitrated, and denying a writ of mandate to compel arbitration.
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