Lacour v. Marshalls of Cal., LLC

94 Cal.App.5th 1172

313 Cal.Rptr.3d 77

Robert LACOUR, Plaintiff, Cross-defendant and Appellant,

v.MARSHALLS OF CALIFORNIA, LLC, et al., Defendants, Cross-complainants and Appellants.

A163920

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Filed August 29, 2023

Setareh Law Group, Shaun Setareh, Beverly Hills, and Thomas Segal for Plaintiff, Cross-defendant and Appellant.

Littler Mendelson, Bradley E. Schwan, Janine Kranz and Brittany L. McCarthy, San Diego, for Defendants, Cross-complainants and Appellants.

STREETER, J.

Plaintiff Robert LaCour appeals from a judgment in favor of Marshalls of California, LLC and certain affiliated entities (collectively Marshalls) in this action under the Labor Code's Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) ( Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq. ). Marshalls cross-appeals.

Together, the appeal and the cross-appeal require us to address three main questions: (1) Since, in Marshalls’ reading, LaCour's notice of appeal specifically mentions only the order granting Marshalls’ motion for judgment on the pleadings, is an earlier order that formed the predicate for the judgment appealable? (2) Did trial court err in rejecting Marshalls’ argument that LaCour's PAGA complaint was untimely? And (3) did the trial court err in partially granting Marshalls’ motion to strike on grounds of claim preclusion?

In answer to these questions, we hold that (1) LaCour's notice of appeal is sufficient to support an appeal of the adverse judgment against him together with all preliminary orders that preceded it; (2) in light of the Governor's emergency order extending statutes of limitation in civil cases during the COVID-19 pandemic—an order we hold was constitutional—the trial court correctly ruled that LaCour's PAGA complaint was timely filed; and (3) the trial court erred in giving claim preclusive effect to a federal court judgment in a prior PAGA case. The judgment will be vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

LaCour, a former Loss Prevention Specialist at a Marshalls store, filed this standalone PAGA action on January 4, 2021. Marshalls filed a demurrer arguing that, because LaCour's employment with Marshalls ended in May 2019, he had only a year and 65 days to bring a PAGA claim, and having missed that deadline, the PAGA action was untimely.

Marshalls also filed a motion to strike, arguing in the alternative that even if LaCour's action was timely filed, all allegations of Labor Code violations pre-dating November 17, 2020 must be stricken because PAGA claims against Marshalls through that date were released in the settlement of an earlier class and PAGA action. (See Order Approving Class Settlement Rodriguez v. Marshalls of CA, LLC (C.D.Cal., July 31, 2020, No. ED CV 18-1716-MWF (SPx), 2020 WL 7753300).)¹ After approving the settlement as fair, reasonable, and adequate under federal class action standards, the district court entered judgment by consent and dismissed the action with prejudice. According to Marshalls, all of LaCour's PAGA allegations should be stricken under the doctrine of claim preclusion.

In response to the demurrer, LaCour argued that, under emergency rule 9 of the California Rules of Court, Appendix I (Emergency Rule 9 ), which was put into effect by the Governor during the pandemic, the otherwise applicable limitations period for filing a PAGA claim was extended by six months. And in response to the motion to strike, LaCour argued the Rodriguez settlement release is unenforceable because plaintiff Paulino had no authority to settle PAGA claims going beyond the factual basis of her pre-suit notice to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA).

According to LaCour, plaintiff Paulino's LWDA notice covered only Labor Code violations for off-the-clock work during time employees spent undergoing an anti-theft bag check procedure at the end of their shifts. LaCour claimed that his pre-suit notice letter to the LWDA, in contrast, dealt with failure to reimburse uniform maintenance and other expenses, such as the costs of using personal phones and vehicles for work purposes, in addition to other kinds of claimed Labor Code violations not encompassed in Paulino's notice.

The trial court overruled Marshalls’ demurrer and granted its motion to strike in part. The court ruled that Emergency Rule 9 was valid and tolled the time for LaCour to bring his PAGA claims. Having decided that LaCour's PAGA claims were timely presented, the court ruled that he would be allowed to pursue those claims subject to a time cutoff in the Rodriguez release (i.e., only to the extent he sought to recover for Labor Code violations occurring after the effective date of the Rodriguez release).

The court rejected LaCour's argument that Paulino had no LWDA authority to settle claims encompassed by LaCour's LWDA notice. Noting that, in a footnote, Paulino's LWDA notice letter listed a variety of Labor Code provisions, including Labor Code section 2802 —which provided the legal basis for LaCour's PAGA claims, even though, factually, her complaint dealt with off-the-clock work and the bag check policy—the court accepted Marshalls’ argument that, as LWDA's proxy, Paulino had authority to settle.

Since Paulino had authority to settle on LWDA's behalf, and since judgment was entered in her case based on a court-approved settlement, the court ruled that the res judicata effect of the judgment in Paulino's case was co-extensive with the scope of the Rodriguez settlement release. And because the Rodriguez settlement release, by its terms, covers claims for the period December 27, 2017 through November 17, 2020, the court granted the motion to strike to the extent LaCour sought to pursue PAGA recovery for Labor Code violations prior to November 17, 2020.

Marshalls then answered the complaint, simultaneously filing a motion for judgment on the pleadings. In its motion for judgment on the pleadings, Marshalls argued that, since LaCour was not an employee of Marshalls at any time after November 17, 2019, he is not an aggrieved employee within the meaning of the PAGA statute and therefore has no standing to sue under our decision in Robinson v. Southern Counties Oil Co. (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 476, 267 Cal.Rptr.3d 633. The court granted the motion. LaCour appealed from the ensuing judgment, and Marshalls cross-appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Appealability

Marshalls claims as a threshold matter that, in LaCour's notice of appeal, he states he is "only appealing the ‘[m]otion for judgment on the pleadings’ and not the judgment itself or any other order issued by the trial court." On that premise, Marshalls argues that LaCour's appeal is designed as a partial appeal of a specific order preceding entry of judgment, and thus he has failed to appeal from the order of May 7, 2021, granting Marshalls’ motion to strike in part. Because it was in the May 7, 2021 order that the trial court addressed the enforceability and scope of the Rodriguez settlement release, Marshalls argues, LaCour's appeal should be dismissed because his notice of appeal does not encompass the critical ruling he seeks to attack.

We reject this argument. Marshalls relies on the rule that, in a partial appeal from a specific portion of an appealable judgment, only those portions of the judgment that are identified in the notice of appeal are reviewable. (See Gonzales v. R. J. Novick Constr. Co. (1978) 20 Cal.3d 798, 805, 144 Cal.Rptr. 408, 575 P.2d 1190 ; American Enterprise, Inc. v. Van Winkle (1952) 39 Cal.2d 210, 216, 246 P.2d 935.) But that rule has no applicability here. We are dealing with an appeal from a judgment, not from a selected piece of a judgment.

The record shows that, on September 10, 2021, the trial court entered both an order on Marshalls’ motion for judgment on the pleadings and judgment on that order. While there is some ambiguity to LaCour's notice of appeal, the notice indicates he is appealing from a "judgment or order entered on" September 10, 2021.² We read notices of appeal liberally ( Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.100(a)(2) ), and we construe LaCour's notice of appeal to signal his intent to seek review of the judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a)(1).

Since LaCour seeks review of an appealable judgment, under Code of Civil Procedure section 906 all intermediate nonappealable orders related to the judgment are reviewable as well (see Lopez v. Brown (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 1114, 1133, 159 Cal.Rptr.3d 86 ), without any need to specify them in the notice of appeal ( Roger v. County of Riverside (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 510, 532, 257 Cal.Rptr.3d 566 ). LaCour argues—and Marshalls does not dispute—that the relatedness criteria set out in Code of Civil Procedure section 906 are satisfied.³ We agree and therefore conclude the May 7, 2021 order granting in part Marshalls’ motion to strike is reviewable.

B. Timeliness

Next, we consider Marshalls’ argument, asserted by way of cross-appeal, that the trial court erroneously overruled its demurrer. If LaCour's PAGA claims were untimely, we need not go on to consider his claim that the trial court erroneously limited him to pursuing claims that arose after November 17, 2020, which in turn was the basis for its ruling that he had no standing to pursue this action at all. So we will address Marshalls’ cross-appeal first.

"We review a trial court's ruling on demurrer de novo [citation], giving ‘ "the complaint a reasonable interpretation, reading it as a whole and viewing its parts in context. [Citations.] We deem to be true all material facts properly pled. [Citation.] We must also accept as true those facts that may be implied or inferred from those expressly alleged." ’ " ( Mahan v. Charles W. Chan Ins. Agency, Inc. (2017) 14 Cal.App.5th 841, 847, 222 Cal.Rptr.3d 360.)

The statute of limitations under PAGA is one year from the date of the last violation. ( Code Civ. Proc., § 340, subd. (a) ; Esparza v. Safeway, Inc. (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 42, 59, 247...