Medina v. United Airlines, Inc.

JOSE MEDINA Plaintiff and Appellant, v. UNITED AIRLINES, INC., Defendant and Respondent.

B293677

California Court of Appeals, Second District, First Division

August 24, 2021

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. BC624742 Yvette M. Palazuelos, Judge. Reversed.

Diversity Law Group, Larry W. Lee; Law Offices of Choi &amp Associates, Edward W. Choi; Polaris Law Group and William L Marder for Plaintiff and Appellant.

O'Meleveny & Myers, Adam P. KohSweeney and Susannah K. Howard for Defendant and Respondent.

CRANDALL, J. ^[*]

Jose Medina appeals from a summary judgment granted in favor of United Airlines, Inc. (United) on his Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA; § 2698 et seq.) action which seeks solely civil penalties for United's alleged violations of the meal break requirements contained within the California Labor Code.

The trial court ruled the action was preempted by the Railway Labor Act (RLA; 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.) because adjudicating Medina's claim would require the court to interpret the parties' collective bargaining agreement. However, preemption under the RLA is narrowly construed under both California and Supreme Court precedent and is required only if the state law claim cannotbe resolved without interpreting that agreement.

Medina is seeking only penalties on behalf of the state, not unpaid wages or other damages that might implicate the terms of United's collective bargaining agreement. Accordingly, interpretation of that agreement is unnecessary to determine whether United violated California's Labor Code.

The PAGA serves an important supplementary role as an enforcement tool under the Labor Code to augment the limited enforcement capabilities of the state. Preemption of employment standards within the traditional police power of the state should not be lightly inferred.

Accordingly, we reverse.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY ^[1]

Medina has been employed as a mechanic at Los Angeles International Airport for United and Continental Airlines (acquired by United in 2010) since January 1989. Mechanics are subdivided into line technicians or base technicians, among other categories. Line technicians such as Medina perform maintenance on live aircraft-i.e., aircraft currently in service and arriving and/or departing from a United station. Their duties include responding to mechanical concerns raised by the aircraft's flight crew and ensuring that everything on the minimum equipment list is in working order before the aircraft takes off.

A. The Collective Bargaining Agreements

Due to Medina's long-standing employment, first with Continental Airlines and then United, the terms and conditions of his employment are governed by two separate collective bargaining agreements negotiated and approved under the RLA.^[2] The relevant meal break provisions are identical and, for ease of reference, are hereafter referred to collectively as the “Collective Bargaining Agreement” or “CBA.”^[3]

Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, a normal work day is eight hours of work, with a 30-minute unpaid meal break and two 10-minute rest breaks. If a mechanic works two or more hours of overtime, the employee “shall be afforded an additional thirty (30) minute paid meal period, or pay in lieu thereof.” If the employee works four hours of overtime, “an additional thirty (30) minute paid meal period, or pay in lieu thereof, will be allowed within the following hour.” “When not afforded the aforementioned meal period(s) an employee may, subject to the needs of service, forgo any additional pay and be allowed to leave work early with pay at the applicable overtime rate.”

B. California Meal Break Requirements

Labor Code section 226.7, subdivision (b), ^[4] prohibits an employer from requiring “an employee to work during a meal or rest or recovery period mandated pursuant to an applicable... order of the Industrial Welfare Commission.” In turn, Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Order No. 9-2001, provides: “An employer may not employ an employee for a work period of more than ten (10) hours per day without providing the employee with a second meal period of not less than 30 minutes, except that if the total hours worked is no more than 12 hours, the second meal period may be waived by mutual consent of the employer and the employee only if the first meal period was not waived.” (Wage Order No. 9-2001, § 11(B) https://www.dir.ca.gov/IWC/IWCArticle09.pdf, as of 8/23/2021.)

Wage Order No. 9-2001 further provides that “[u]nless the employee is relieved of all duty during a 30[-]minute meal period, the meal period shall be considered an ‘on duty' meal period and counted as time worked.” (Id., § 11(C)). “An ‘on duty' meal period shall be permitted only when the nature of the work prevents an employee from being relieved of all duty and when by written agreement between the parties an on-the-job paid meal is agreed to.” (Ibid.) “The written agreement shall state that the employee may, in writing, revoke the agreement at any time.” (Ibid.)

C. The Complaint

On June 22, 2016, Medina filed a representative action under the PAGA, premised on a single claim: United is violating California meal break law by “failing to provide a second meal break” to “[a]ll current and former California mechanic employees... who worked any shifts of over 10 hours from February 9, 2015 through the present.” The complaint alleges that United engages in “willful violations of the California Labor Code by creating and maintaining policies, practices and customs that knowingly deny employees” their meal break rights. Medina seeks penalties pursuant to the PAGA (§ 2699, subd. (a)), for violations of section 226.7.

D. The Summary Judgment Motion

On November 22, 2017, United filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing Medina's action was preempted by the RLA minor dispute preemption because adjudicating his claim would require the court to interpret provisions of the mechanics' CBAs. United further argued that Medina's action was preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act (49 U.S.C. § 41713) and barred by the Dormant Commerce Clause. Finally, United argued that it complied with California law because the CBAs' provisions provide a second meal beak for employees who work over 10 hours.

On September 24, 2018, the trial court granted United's motion for summary judgment on the sole ground that the action was preempted by the RLA.^[5]

On November 2, 2018, Medina filed his timely notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

“The court's order granting summary judgment and involving an issue of preemption requires us to undertake a de novo review.” (Department of Industrial Relations v. Nielsen Construction Co. (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 1016, 1024; see also Valencia v. SCIS Air Security Corp. (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 377, 383.)

B. PAGA Suits

The Legislature enacted the PAGA in 2003 after deciding that lagging labor law enforcement resources made additional private enforcement necessary “ ‘to achieve maximum compliance with state labor laws.' ” (Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348, 379 (Iskanian), quoting Arias v. Superior Court (2009) 46 Cal.4th 969, 980.)

The PAGA empowers employees to sue on behalf of themselves and other aggrieved employees to recover civil penalties previously recoverable only by the Labor Commissioner. (See § 2699, subd. (a); Iskanian, supra, 59 Cal.4th at p. 381.) The PAGA also creates new civil penalties, equally enforceable by aggrieved employees, for most other Labor Code violations that previously did not carry such penalties. (§ 2699, subds. (f), (g)(1); Iskanian, supra, at pp. 379-380.)

“The purpose of the PAGA is not to recover damages or restitution, but to create a means of ‘deputizing' citizens as private attorneys general to enforce the Labor Code.” (Brown v. Ralphs Grocery Co. (2011) 197 Cal.App.4th 489, 501.) Seventy-five percent of any penalties collected by a PAGA representative are distributed to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, while the remaining 25 percent are distributed to the aggrieved employees. (§ 2699, subd. (i).) Statutory class action requirements are not applicable. (Arias v. Superior Court, supra, 46 Cal.4th at p. 975.)

C. RLA and Preemption

1. The RLA

Congress enacted the RLA “ ‘to promote stability in labor-management relations by providing a comprehensive framework for resolving labor disputes.' ” (Espinal v. Northwest Airlines (9th Cir. 1996) 90 F.3d 1452, 1456, quoting Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. v. Norris (1994) 512 U.S. 246, 252 (Hawaiian Airlines.)

The RLA requires mandatory arbitration for two classes of disputes: “ ‘major' disputes, ” which concern “ ‘the formation of collective bargaining agreements or efforts to secure them,' ” and “ ‘minor' disputes”, which “ ‘involve controversies over the meaning of an existing collective bargaining agreement in a particular fact situation.' ” (Espinal v. Northwest Airlines, supra, 90 F.3d at p. 1456, quoting Hawaiian Airlines, supra, 512 U.S. at pp. 252-253). Both major and minor disputes are preempted.^[6] (Hawaiian Airlines, supra, at pp. 252-254.)

Although the parties agree that Medina's claim cannot be considered a major dispute, United contends that it falls within the minor dispute category and must be resolved only through the RLA mechanisms.^[7]

2. Minor Dispute Preemption

In determining dispute preemption, the United States Supreme Court has instructed courts to employ the same criteria used to determine preemption under the Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA; 29 U.S.C. § 185). (Hawaiian Airlines, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 263; Alaska Airlines, supra, 898 F.3d at pp. 913-914, fn 1.) The Ninth Circuit Court, in turn, has...