202 Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com and services to be performed,973 and should include provisions, requiring indemnification from employment agencies and other labor contractors for the labor contractors’ wage and hour violations.974 D. Litigating Joint Employer Claims Plaintiffs that seek to hold multiple entities liable as joint employers for wage and hour violations are required to plead specific facts that differentiate the entities, explain the relationships between them and specify the acts of each defendant that could give rise to joint employer liability.975 Where a class action complaint is devoid of these facts, or where joint employer allegations can be disproven in a dispositive motion, it is important to seek dismissal of improperly named defendants early on in class action cases.976 Otherwise, entities that are improperly joined in an action under a joint employer theory of liability may have to incur significant costs associated with class discovery. 973 Labor Code § 2810 provides for a “rebuttable presumption”that no violation has occurred where the contract between the hiring entity and the agency or labor supplier specifies information in ten categories, including the names and contact information of the persons or entities performing the services and those through whom the services are to be provided, a description of the services, employer identification numbers, workers’ compensation insurance policy numbers, number of workers, and amounts of commissions or other payments to be made. 974 Labor Code § 2810.3 (g) permits a client employer to establish and enforce by contract any lawful remedies against a labor contractor for liability created by acts of the labor contractor. The statute likewise permits labor contractors to contract for and seek indemnification from client employers for liability created by acts of the client employer. Id., at § (h). 975 See e.g., Johnson v. Serenity Transportation, Inc., 2016 WL 270952, *11 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 22, 2016) (“[A] plaintiff seeking to hold multiple entities liable as joint employers must plead specific facts that explain how the defendants are related and how the conduct underlying the claims is attributable to each defendant.”); Perez v. DNC Parks & Resorts at Asilomar, Inc., 2019 WL 5618169, *7 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 31, 2019) (“To make a plausible joint employer claim, plaintiff must allege some specific facts such as whether defendant pays the employee’s salary and taxes, owns the equipment necessary for the employee to perform his job, has authority to hire, train, fire, or discipline the employee, or has discretion to set the employee’s salary.”) (internal quotations omitted). 976 See Terrell v. Samuel, Son & Co. (USA), 2020 WL 5372107, *3 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 23, 2020) (granting a motion to dismiss where “Plaintiff’s allegations against [alleged joint employer] Defendants are entirely undifferentiated”); Valencia v. N. Star Gas Co., 291 F. Supp. 3d 1155, 1160–62 (S.D. Cal. 2018) (dismissing claims brought against a defendant where the plaintiff’s allegations that the defendant was a “co-employer responsible for all human resources functions ... [that] sets and negotiates rates of pay” and “schedules and hours” were deemed insufficient to sufficiently assert a joint employer relationship under state and federal law); Bravo v. On Delivery Servs., LLC, 2018 WL 2387835, *1 (N.D. Cal. May 25, 2018) (granting a motion to dismiss because there were “no factual allegations in the complaint regarding the nature of the alleged joint relationship”); Myles v. Builders Concrete, Inc., 2022 WL 2318176, *3 (E.D. Cal. June 28, 2022) (dismissing all claims brought against four entity defendants where the only factual allegations in support of a joint employer relationship were that it was “evidenced by [plaintiff’s] paychecks and company documents”).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4