Judge: Gail Killefer, Case: 22STCV35826, Date: 2024-04-16 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCV35826 Hearing Date: April 16, 2024 Dept: 37
HEARING DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 2024
CASE NUMBER: 22STCV35826
CASE NAME: Courtney Hughes v. Public Storage
MOVING PARTY: Defendant Public Storage
OPPOSING PARTY: Plaintiff Courtney Hughes
TRIAL DATE: Not Set
PROOF OF SERVICE: OK
PROCEEDING: Motion to Compel
Arbitration
OPPOSITION: 03 April 2023
REPLY: 09
April 2023
TENTATIVE: Defendant’s
Motion to Compel Arbitration is denied.
Moving party to give notice.
Background
On November 14, 2022,
Courtney Hughes (“Hughes”) filed a Complaint against Public Storage
(“Defendant”) and Does 1 to 50. The Complaint alleges a PAGA action for Civil
Penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act. (Lab. Code § 2698 et.
seq.).
On February 2, 2023,
Defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration, but before the hearing the
parties stipulated to stay the action pending mediation. On February 23, 2024,
Defendant’s renewed their motion to compel arbitration. Plaintiff now opposes the
Motion. The matter is now before the court.
I. Legal Standard
Parties may be compelled to arbitrate a dispute
upon the court finding that: (1) there was a valid agreement to arbitrate
between the parties; and (2) said agreement covers the controversy or
controversies in the parties’ dispute.¿(CCP § 1281.2; Omar v. Ralphs Grocery
Co. (2004)¿118 Cal.App.4th 955, 961.)¿
A party petitioning to compel arbitration has the
burden of establishing the existence of a valid agreement to arbitrate and the
party opposing the petition has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of
the evidence, any fact necessary to its defense. (Banner Entertainment, Inc.
v. Superior Court¿(1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 348, 356-57.)¿¿
¿
“If
a court of competent jurisdiction, whether in this State or not, has ordered
arbitration of a controversy which is an issue involved in an action or
proceeding pending before a court of this State, the court in which such action
or proceeding is pending shall, upon motion of a party to such action or
proceeding, stay the action or proceeding until an arbitration is had in
accordance with the order to arbitrate or until such earlier time as the court
specifies.” (CCP, § 1281.4.)¿
II. Request for Judicial Notice
The court may take
judicial notice of records of any court of record of the United States. (Evid.
Code, § 452(d)(2).) However, the court may only judicially notice the existence
of the record, not that its contents are the truth. (Sosinsky v. Grant
(1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1548, 1565.)
Defendant requests
judicial notice of the following exhibits:
1)
Exhibit 1: Shaun
Henson, et al. v. NP Mechanical, Inc., et al., Riverside Superior
Court Case No. CVRI2301591 – Notice of Ruling re Defendant NP Mechanical,
Inc.’s Motion to Compel Arbitration of Individual PAGA Claims and to Stay Non-Individual
PAGA Claims (November 17, 2023)
2)
Exhibit 2: Jennifer Horta, et al. v. Rockport Healthcare Support Services,
LLC, Los Angeles Superior Case No. 21STCV34712 – Notice of Entry of Orders
Regarding Defendant’s Motion to Compel Plaintiff’s Individual Claims to
Arbitration and Stay the Non-Individual Claims Pending Arbitration (November
30, 2023)
3)
Exhibit 3: Diana Gonzalez v. V.F. Corporation, et al, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 22STCV14052 – Minute Order
(January 30, 2024)
4)
Exhibit 4: LaNaye D. Gibson v. FRC Balance LLC, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 23STCV00362 – Minute Order
(January 31, 2024)
5)
Exhibit 5: David Velez v. Down Dog Lodge, LLC, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 23STCV17285 – Order re
Motion to Compel Arbitration (February 2, 2024)
6)
Exhibit 6: Mitch House v. Guitar Center Stores, Inc., et al, Santa Clara Superior Court Case No. 21CV385047 – Order Regarding
Defendants’ Motion to Compel Arbitration (December 12, 2023
7)
Exhibit 7: Luna-Acosta v. Summerfield Healthcare Center, Orange Superior Court Case No. 30-2021-01222675- CU-OE-CXC –
Minute Order (October 27, 2023)
Defendant’s request
for judicial notice is granted.
III. Evidentiary Objections
Defendant
filed the filing evidentiary objection:
Objection
No. 1 to Exhibit A of Plaintiff’s Opposition is sustained as Exhibit A has not
been properly authenticated.
IV. Discussion
A. Defendant’s Burden to Prove the
Existence of a Valid Agreement to Arbitrate
“The petitioner bears the burden of proving the existence of a
valid arbitration agreement by the preponderance of the evidence, and a party
opposing the petition bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the
evidence any fact necessary to its defense. In these summary proceedings, the
trial court sits as a trier of fact, weighing all the affidavits, declarations,
and other documentary evidence, as well as oral testimony received at the
court’s discretion, to reach a final determination. No jury trial is available
for a petition to compel arbitration.” (Engalla v. Permanente Medical Group,
Inc. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 951, 972 [Citations Omitted].)
Defendant
moves to compel arbitration of Plaintiff’s individual PAGA claim and stay
Plaintiff’s representative PAGA claim, pending arbitration of the individual
PAGA claim. Defendant asserts that when Plaintiff received a written offer of
employment from Defendant on February 7, 2020, Plaintiff signed and accepted
the offer and acknowledged that : (1) she agreed to
arbitrate any claims against Public Storage that arise from or relate to her
employment and (2) she expressly consented to conduct transactions electronically
during the hiring process. (Coats Decl. ¶ 7.)
Accordingly, on
February 7, 2020, Plaintiff signed a Pre-Employment Consent, Authorization and
Release Form in which she also agreed that she understood that the arbitration
of any employment disputes was a condition of employment. (Coates Decl. ¶ 8,
Ex. B.)
Defendant’s
onboarding system, “Workday,” tracked
Plaintiff’s use of the system via her unique password login and email address, reflecting
that she electronically signed the Arbitration Agreement during the onboarding
process. (Coats Decl. ¶¶ 10-13, Ex. D, E, F, H, I, J.) Attached as Exhibit F to
the Tara Coats Declaration is a copy of the Abirritation Agreement Plaintiff
agreed to abide by. (Coats Decl. Ex. F.)
B. Plaintiff’s
Right to Bring a Non-Individual PAGA Action
Plaintiff’s opposition does not dispute that Plaintiff signed
Defendant’s Arbitration Agreement. Instead, Plaintiff asks that her
representative claims not be stayed and that because she brings no individual
PAGA claims, arbitration cannot be compelled.
“Where a plaintiff has brought a PAGA action comprising individual and
non-individual claims, an order compelling arbitration of the individual claims
does not strip the plaintiff of standing as an aggrieved employee to litigate
claims on behalf of other employees under PAGA.” (Adolph v. Uber Technologies,
Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 1104, 1114
(Adolph). Plaintiff represents that pursuant to Adolph,
PAGA claims are severable and that she can bring a representative PAGA claim
without bringing an individual PAGA claim.
In Viking River Cruises, Inc. v.
Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. 639 (Viking), the United States
Supreme Court held that “the FAA preempts
the rule of [Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014)
59 Cal.4th 348] insofar as it precludes division of PAGA actions
into individual and non-individual claims through an agreement to arbitrate.” (Id.
at p. 662.) In Adolph, the California Supreme Court
confirmed that Viking River allowed PAGA claims to be split into
individual and non-individual claims. (Adolph, supra, 14 Cal.5th
at p. 1118.) In other words, PAGA claims are composed of “violations sustained by the plaintiff employee (what Viking
River called individual claims” and “claims on behalf of
other employees (i.e., non-individual claims).” (Ibid.) However, “ ‘
whether or not an individual claim is permissible under the PAGA, a prohibition
of representative [i.e., non-individual] claims frustrates
the PAGA's objectives.’ ” (Ibid.) Accordingly, Plaintiff’s
representative PAGA claims for civil penalties cannot be compelled to
arbitration because the Labor and Workforce Development Agency remains the real
party in interest. (Id. at 1117.)
In Adolph, the
California Supreme Court cited with approval its holding in Kim v. Reins
International California, Inc.¿(2020)
Cal.5th 73 (Kim) and the Fourth District’s decision in Johnson v. Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc. (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 924 (Johnson). “Kim and Johnson make clear,
a worker becomes an ‘aggrieved employee’ with standing to litigate claims on
behalf of fellow employees upon sustaining a Labor Code
violation committed by his or her employer. [Citations.]” (Adolph,
supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 1121.)
In Kim, Plaintiff settled her
individual PAGA claims and pursuant to the settlement of her individual claims,
dismissed her individual PAGA claims, leaving only her representative PAGA
claims. (Kim, supra, 9 Cal.5th at p. 82.) The California Supreme
Court found that the Plaintiff did not lose standing to bring
non-individual/representative PAGA claims by virtue of dismissing her
individual PAGA claims because “[n]othing in the legislative history [of the PAGA
statute] suggests the Legislature intended to make PAGA standing dependent on the existence of an unredressed injury, or
the maintenance of a separate, unresolved claim.” (Id. at pp. 90-01.)
In Johnson, the Labor Code violations
sustained by the plaintiff were time-barred and the employer-defendant argued
that Plaintiff lacked PAGA standing. (Johnson, supra, 66 Cal.5th
at p. 929.) The Johnson Court rejected the employer’s argument finding
that plaintiff had standing to pursue her PAGA claim so long as the plaintiff satisfied
the definition of “aggrieved employee.” (Id. at p. 930.)
The
fact that Johnson's individual claim may be time-barred does not nullify the
alleged Labor Code violations nor strip Johnson of her standing to pursue PAGA
remedies. [Citation.] In this sense, we find the fact that Johnson's claim is
time-barred places her in a similar situation as a plaintiff who settles her
individual claims or dismisses her individual claims to pursue a stand-alone
PAGA claim.
(Id. at p. 930.)
There is a difference in seeking to recover
civil penalties under PAGA rather than damages for individual Labor Code Violations:
damages are intended to be compensatory while civil penalties are intended to
punish the wrongdoer and deter future misconduct. (Kim, supra, 9
Cal.5th at p. 86, see also Raines v. Coastal Pacific Food Distributors, Inc.
(2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 667, 670.) Here, Plaintiff is seeking civil penalties
rather than individual damages.
Plaintiff’s decision to not pursue her
individual PAGA claims for damages and instead seek non-individual/representative
PAGA claims for civil penalties, has the same procedural and substantive effect
as the plaintiff in Kim who choose
to dismiss her individual PAGA claims. In other words, Plaintiff’s
non-individual/representative PAGA action does not rise or fall with the
determination that Plaintiff has an “unredressed injury” or has maintained a seperate
claim. (Kim, supra, 9 Cal.5th at p. 90-91.)
Such a condition would have severely curtailed
PAGA's availability to police Labor Code violations because, as noted, many
provisions do not create private rights of action or require an allegation of
quantifiable injury. Instead, true to PAGA's remedial purpose, the Legislature
conferred fairly broad standing on all plaintiffs who were employed by the
violator and subjected to at least one alleged violation.
(Ibid.)
“As we explained in Kim, ‘PAGA
standing is not inextricably linked to the plaintiff's own injury. Employees
who were subjected to at least one unlawful practice have standing to serve as
PAGA representatives even if they did not personally experience each and every
alleged violation. (§ 2699(c).)” (Adolph, supra, 14
Cal.5th at p. 1122.) “The statutory language reflects that the Legislature did
not intend to link PAGA standing to the maintenance of individual claims when
such claims have been alleged.” (Kim, supra, 9 Cal.5th at p. 85.)
The court finds no authority for the
proposition that Plaintiff must bring both an individual and a non-individual
PAGA action to have standing to maintain a non-individual/representative PAGA
action. Moreover, a finding that individual and non-individual PAGA claims are
not severable would be contrary to the holdings of Viking River and Adolph.
Here, all that is required for Plaintiff to have standing to bring a
non-individual PAGA action is that she alleged she was employed by Defendant,
and one or more violations were committed against her. (Lab. Code, § 2699(c).) The
court finds no case law or provision in the PAGA statute that requires
plaintiff to plead and prove her PAGA standing before bringing
non-individual/representative PAGA claims.
To require Plaintiff to prove she suffered
one or more violations in arbitration pursuant to a valid arbitration agreement
when she seeks to bring a representative PAGA claim, would require reading into
the PAGA statute requirements that are not in the statute. As stated by the California Supreme Court in Adolph
“we decline[] to impose additional
requirements not found in the statute.”
Here, this court also declines to find that Plaintiff must bring both
individual and non-individual PAGA claims in order to have standing to bring a representative
PAGA action. (Adolph, supra, 14 Cal.5th at . 1120.)
Lastly, Defendant’s reliance on Rocha v. U-Haul Co. of California (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th
65, 75 is misplaced as Rocha did not hold that a plaintiff must bring an
individual PAGA claim to assert a representative PAGA claim. In Rocha, plaintiffs chose to bring
individual PAGA claims that were then subsequently adjudicated in arbitration,
unlike the Plaintiff in this action who chose not file an individual PAGA claim
seeking damages.
As representative PAGA claims cannot be
compelled into arbitration and Plaintiff brings no individual PAGA claims for
damages, Defendant’s Motion is denied.
Conclusion
Defendant’s Motion to Compel Arbitration is denied.
Defendant to give notice.