Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) 119 The Ninth Circuit followed Sonner in another consumer class action. In Guzman v. Polaris Indus. Inc.,594 the plaintiff alleged various state law claims for damages along with a UCL claim. The district court dismissed the damages claims as time-barred, leaving the plaintiff with only his UCL claim. Applying the equitable jurisdiction doctrine, the district court then entered summary judgment against the plaintiff on the UCL claim because the damages claims constituted an adequate remedy at law, even if they were time-barred. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion, holding that the plaintiff “had an adequate remedy at law through his CLRA claim for damages, even though he could no longer pursue it.” The Court explained that the plaintiff “could not pursue his equitable UCL claim in federal court while his CLRA claim was timely” and his “failure to have timely pursued his CLRA claim cannot confer equitable jurisdiction on a federal court to entertain his UCL claim.” Any contrary outcome would reward delay. Many district courts have applied Sonner and Guzman to UCL claims in the wage-and-hour context.595 So what happens to the UCL claim under such circumstances? Guzman clarifies that the correct procedural outcome is to dismiss the UCL claim rather than to enter summary judgment. There, the Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss.596 “Because the district court lacked equitable jurisdiction over [the plaintiff’s] UCL claim, it could not, and did not, make a merits determination as to liability and should not have granted summary judgment.” Rather, “the district court should have dismissed [the plaintiff’s] UCL claim without prejudice to refiling the same claim in state court.” Some plaintiffs may argue that dismissal of a UCL claim asserted as part of a wage & hour class action will “unfairly” reduce the class period by one year. But courts have rejected this argument.597 594 49 F.4th 1308 (9th Cir. 2022). 595 E.g., Ary v. Target Corp., 2023 WL 2622142, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 23, 2023); Easton v. Wells Fargo & Co., 2022 WL 17886002, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 6, 2022); Price v. Wells Fargo & Co., 2022 WL 17821590, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 6, 2022); Fan v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 2022 WL 16964099, at *3 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 2022); Mish v. TForce Freight, Inc., 2021 WL 4592124, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2021). 596 49 F.4th at 1314-15. 597 E.g., Fan v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 2022 WL 16964099, at *3 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 16, 2022) (dismissing UCL claim and rejecting argument that dismissal will “result in an unfair limitation of the class period in this action from a period of four years, to three years from the initial filing of the complaint”; “[M]ultiple courts––including courts comparing the statutes of limitations of the UCL and the California Labor Code––have found that a shorter statute of limitations alone does not render a legal remedy inadequate.”).
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