82 Litigating CA Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions (22nd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Arias raised many questions. For example, if a plaintiff were to pursue a meal period class action as well as a derivative PAGA action for penalties, and a trial court denied certification of the case on the ground that individualized issues predominate as to whether different employees experienced meal period violations, could the case proceed nonetheless on a representative basis? Presumably, this would require that the plaintiff individually prove each employee’s claim to meal period violations, but if that could be done in a manageable manner, the court likely would have certified a class. If it required each aggrieved employee individually to prove a violation, would each of possibly hundreds of such employees be required to appear and testify? And if they failed to do so, would that provide a basis for the court to rule against them on the merits? The most sensible reading of Arias is not that it endorsed the notion that every action for Labor Code civil penalties can proceed collectively without class certification, but rather that it is not always necessary to use class action procedures. In cases where the violation can be proven through records or some other collective mechanism (e.g., a minimum wage violation that could be proven by reference to payroll records), an employee could prove it on behalf of a group of aggrieved employees without the need to obtain class certification. However, where individualized issues predominate, courts may dismiss PAGA claims, or substantially reduce their scope on grounds of manageability.484 E. Whether PAGA Claims Can Be Stricken As Unmanageable Although class certification requirements do not apply to PAGA actions, employers have sought to strike PAGA claims on the basis that the predominance of individualized issues would make trial “unmanageable.” The manageability argument is based on courts’ inherent authority to control litigation pending before them.485 Over the past year, a split has emerged among California appellate courts regarding whether courts may strike PAGA claims on grounds of manageability. On one hand is the September 2021 decision in Wesson v. Staples the Office Superstore, LLC.486 In Wesson, the Second District Court of Appeal—which covers the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San 484 See Valadez v. CSX Intermodal Terminals, Inc., 298 F. Supp. 3d 1254 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 27, 2018) (holding that whether drivers were misclassified as independent contractors required too many individualized issues so as to render the drivers’ representative PAGA claims unmanageable); Brown v. American Airlines, 2015 WL 6735217 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 5, 2015) (refusing to strike PAGA allegations on ground that PAGA representative actions must meet Rule 23 standards, but holding that some PAGA claims were unmanageable and therefore could not proceed on representative basis). 485 Bauguess v. Paine, 22 Cal. 3d 626, 635 (1978); Western Steel & Ship Repair, Inc. v. RMI, Inc., 176 Cal. App. 3d 1108, 1116-1117 (1986) (describing the “inherent power of the superior court—and of courts generally—to control litigation before it, to prevent abuse of its process, and to create a remedy for a wrong even in the absence of specific statutory remedies”); Cottle v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. App. 4th 1367, 1376 (1992) (discussing the inherent authority of California courts, both statutory and non-statutory). A Court’s inherent power entitles it to exercise reasonable control over litigation proceedings to ensure orderly administration of justice. Hays v. Superior Court in and for Los Angeles County, 16 Cal. 2d 260, 264–265 (1940). These inherent powers are derived from the state Constitution and are not confined by or dependent on statute. Walker v. Superior Court, 53 Cal. 3d 257, 267 (1991). However, the Legislature has enacted statutes recognizing the authority of courts to manage their proceedings and to adopt suitable methods of practice. See, e.g., CCP §§ 128, 187. 486 Wesson v. Staples the Off. Superstore, LLC, 68 Cal. App. 5th 746 (2021).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4