Shaw v. Superior Court of Contra Costa Cnty.

78 Cal.App.5th 245

293 Cal.Rptr.3d 390

Ashley SHAW et al., Petitioners,

v.The SUPERIOR COURT OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Respondent;

Beverages & More, Inc., Real Party in Interest.

A163263

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

Filed May 3, 2022

Bryan Schwartz Law, Bryan J. Schwartz; Altshuler Berzon LLP, Michael Rubin, San Francisco, for Petitioners.

No appearance for Respondent.

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, Steven L. Mayer, Dipanwita Deb Amar, San Francisco, Katelyn E. Rey for Real Party in Interest.

BROWN, J.

Petitioners brought a representative suit under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) ( Lab. Code,¹ § 2698 et seq. ). They conceded that their suit arises from the same facts and theories as another PAGA action pending in Los Angeles. While their petition for judicial coordination ( Code Civ. Proc., § 404 ) with the Los Angeles PAGA suit was pending, the trial court in this case stayed petitioners’ suit. After the petition for coordination was denied, the trial court denied petitioners’ motion to lift the stay, concluding that the stay was warranted under the doctrine of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction. In this writ of mandate proceeding, we find that the trial court did not err in applying the exclusive concurrent jurisdiction rule to this dispute. We therefore deny the petition for a peremptory writ of mandate.

BACKGROUND

Petitioners’ operative first amended complaint in this representative action alleges PAGA-only claims. They contend that defendant Beverages & More!, Inc. (BevMo) maintains a policy that requires the presence of two persons in any store while open (the two-person policy). The two-person policy regularly requires employees to forgo off-duty, uninterrupted meal and rest periods, or, alternatively, premium pay for noncompliant meal and rest periods. As a result of this policy, BevMo failed to pay overtime wages ( §§ 510, 1194 ); failed to provide off-duty meal periods ( §§ 226.7, 512 ); failed to make available off-duty rest periods ( § 226.7 ); failed to pay all wages due upon termination ( §§ 201 – 203 ); failed to provide compliant wage statements ( § 226, subd. (a) ); and failed to maintain payroll records ( § 1174 ). Petitioners gave notice to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) under PAGA on July 21, 2020, and they seek to represent aggrieved employees "who have worked for Defendant[ ] at any time since one year prior to the filing of the PAGA Notice to the trial in this action."

More than a year before petitioners filed suit, Tatiana Paez filed a PAGA representative action against BevMo in Los Angeles County (Paez ). Paez sued, in part, over the two-person policy. The claims in Paez that overlap with petitioners’ claims are failure to pay overtime wages ( §§ 510, 1194 ); failure to provide off-duty meal periods ( §§ 226.7, 512 ); failure to make available off-duty rest periods ( § 226.7 ); failure to pay all wages due upon termination ( §§ 201 – 203 ); failure to provide compliant wage statements ( § 226, subd. (a) ); and failure to maintain payroll records ( § 1174 ). Paez also includes claims for failure to pay minimum wage ( §§ 1182.12, 1194, 1197, 1198 ); failure to pay wages during employment ( § 204 ); failure to pay costs of medical or physical examination ( § 222.5 ); failure to provide suitable seating ( § 1198 ; Cal. Code of Reg., tit. 8, § 116.11070(14)(A)); failure to reimburse necessary business expenses ( § 2802 ); and failure to provide safety devices and safeguards ( §§ 6401, 6403 ). Paez brought an action on behalf of herself and current and former "aggrieved employees" who worked for BevMo in California as non-exempt employees and who received at least one wage statement at any time from one year prior to June 25, 2019, until judgment.

BevMo sought to stay the proceeding in this case under the doctrine of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction and under the court's inherent authority. Petitioners filed a petition to coordinate this case with Paez and asked for appointment of their counsel as "liaison counsel" for the aggrieved employees. In their respective filings in the coordination proceeding, petitioners and BevMo agreed that the PAGA claims in this case overlap completely with those in Paez .

While the petition for coordination was pending, the trial court in this matter granted BevMo's motion to stay. The court found that the pending coordination petition did not limit its power to decide the motion because the coordination motion judge's power to issue a stay supplemented, but did not displace, the trial court's power under Code of Civil Procedure section 128 and its inherent judicial authority. The court then applied the doctrine of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction, rejecting petitioners’ argument that the doctrine does not apply in PAGA cases. The court issued an order staying the proceeding until one of the following occurred: "a. The Paez action ... is finally resolved by judgment, settlement, or otherwise. [¶] b. The coordination motion judge or, if Plaintiffs’ petition is granted[,] the coordination trial judge, issues an order that the stay is lifted in whole or in part.... [¶] or c. The Court enters a further order upon the noticed motion of either side."

Paez and BevMo opposed the petition for coordination and for appointment of liaison counsel, and the coordination motion judge denied petitioners’ requests. The coordination judge found Paez could not be coordinated with petitioners’ suit because the trial judge in the Los Angeles action had determined that Paez was not complex, and the coordination judge declined "to depart" from that decision. The coordination judge also found that, even if Paez were complex, the standards for coordination were not met for a variety of reasons, including that common questions of fact and law did not predominate given Paez’ s breadth; Paez was at a more advanced stage in the litigation; the convenience of the parties, witnesses, and counsel did not favor coordination in either location; counsel in Paez were vigorous advocates; the stay of petitioners’ case meant that coordination was not required for judicial economy or to avoid duplicative rulings; and, a settlement of Paez would resolve this case, but the addition of more parties and attorneys might inhibit settlement.

While their petition for coordination was pending, petitioners filed a motion to intervene in Paez . The trial court denied their motion, finding that petitioners did not have an interest in Paez sufficient to justify intervention. The Paez trial court further found that even if petitioners did have such an interest, petitioners represented the LWDA's interests, and the Paez plaintiffs adequately represented those interests.

Petitioners next moved to lift the stay in this case. The argument they presented in their motion was that the rule of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction did not preclude the trial court from lifting the stay because countervailing policies rendered the doctrine inapplicable. They also argued that the doctrine of collateral estoppel shields defendants from vexatious litigation under PAGA, and PAGA does not prohibit concurrent PAGA representative suits from proceeding simultaneously.

After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. As an initial matter, the court "agree[d] with plaintiffs that application of the rule [of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction] is discretionary," and observed the "question is whether the Court should exercise its discretion to apply the rule in the case at bar." Deciding that it should, the court rejected petitioners’ argument that not lifting the stay would "significantly impair" PAGA's enforcement mechanism. The court found that, "while PAGA claims may sometimes be enforced through multiple overlapping lawsuits, it does not logically follow that limiting enforcement to a single lawsuit constitutes impairment."² The court then cited a number of policy considerations supporting application of the rule of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction, which petitioners did not address. It noted that petitioners did not "dispute that it would be inefficient for the same PAGA claims to be litigated simultaneously in two courts, etc." The court also found that the doctrine of res judicata, which petitioners claimed was a remedy for duplicative lawsuits, "only emphasizes the inefficiency of allowing the two actions to proceed simultaneously. All work done in this action would be rendered moot by res judicata if, as appears likely right now, the same claims in the Paez action are decided first."³ Finally, the court noted that, in denying petitioners’ request to intervene, the Paez court left "the door ajar" to a subsequent showing that a later settlement may be inadequate and therefore justify intervention. Accordingly, the court concluded that "the considerations supporting application of the rule of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction outweigh the considerations supporting a lifting of the stay."⁴

DISCUSSION

At issue in this writ petition is whether the trial court erred in applying the doctrine of exclusive concurrent jurisdiction to this PAGA representative suit. Before turning to this question, we briefly review the applicable legal principles.

I. Legal Background

A. PAGA

" ‘ "The State's labor law enforcement agencies—the [LWDA] and its constituent departments and divisions—are authorized to assess and collect civil penalties for specified violations of the Labor Code committed by an employer." ’ [Citation.] In 2003, citing inadequate funding for enforcement of labor laws, the Legislature enacted PAGA to ‘authorize[ ] an employee to bring an action for civil penalties on behalf of the state against his or her employer for Labor Code violations committed against the employee and fellow employees, with most of the proceeds of that litigation going to the state.’ [Citation.] The statute was intended ‘ "to punish and deter employer practices that violate the rights of numerous...