Iskanian Is Still Good Law In California.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Henry V, Act III, Scene I.
Employers continue to seek to enforce contractual waivers of the right to litigate in court, and employees continue to punch back, insisting on the right to litigate Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) claims in court. Thus far, California courts have followed Iskanian, refusing to enforce the waiver of the right to pursue PAGA claims in court.
In Brandon Olson v. Lyft, Inc., No. A156322 (1/2 10/29/20) (Richman, Stewart, Miller), the court again addresses whether Iskanian is still good law, and whether it has been impliedly overruled by SCOTUS in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, which liberally applied Federal Arbitration Act preemption to enforce an arbitration agreement with an employee.
The short answer is that Iskanian, a California Supreme Court case, has not been overruled, and is still good law in California state court. Nor does Epic Systems, which involves different facts, change the legal analysis. Iskanian held that a PAGA claim is like a qui tam claim, in which the plaintiff acts on behalf of the state. And therefore the plaintiff's contractual waiver of the right to litigate is not enforceable, because the plaintiff is acting on behalf of the state, which did not waive the right to arbitrate. Epic Systems did not involve a qui tam or PAGA representative claim in which the plaintiff acted as a representative of the state.
Olson v. Lyft, Inc. relies heavily on the legal analysis in Correia v. NB Baker Electric, Inc., 32 Cal.App.5th 602 (2019), about which we posted on February 26, 2019. If you read the earlier post about Correia, you'll get a pretty fair summary of the argument in Olson v. Lyft. The later/latest case gathers the authority supporting the continuing viability of Iskanian.
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