Q: What are the implications of Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana for California's Private Attorney General Act?
A: Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 142 S.Ct. 1906, has not yet proven to be the silver bullet that California employers have been waiting for to use against the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) plaintiffs in California. While the case has provided California employers with a tool to compel individual arbitration with PAGA plaintiffs, no reported California Court of Appeal or California Supreme Court opinion has yet upheld the dismissal of a PAGA plaintiff's representative PAGA claims on this basis.
In fact, in March 2023, in the decision of Gregg v. Uber Technologies, a California Appellate court disagreed (citing to Viking River Cruises) with Uber's contention that along with compelling plaintiff's individual claims into Arbitration, the plaintiff's non-individual PAGA claims should be dismissed. The Appellate court disagreed with Uber and held that the plaintiff did have standing to pursue...
