August 21, 2020

Robinson v. Southern Counties Oil Company (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 476

California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) permits an “aggrieved employee” to bring a representative action on behalf of current or former employees to recover civil penalties for wage-related violations of California’s Labor Code. Plaintiff brought a PAGA action against his former employer, seeking penalties for alleged wage-and-hour violations. The trial court dismissed that lawsuit because the trial court, in a different class/PAGA action against the same employer, had approved a settlement covering PAGA penalties for the time period of plaintiff’s employment. The trial court determined that the settlement barred the plaintiff from maintaining his PAGA action.

The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that plaintiff had no standing to bring his PAGA action because (a) the settlement of PAGA claims against plaintiff’s employer in the other class action precluded plaintiff from recovering on those same PAGA claims, and (b) the remaining PAGA claims covered a period when plaintiff was no longer employed by the defendant.

Citing Arias v. Superior Court (2009) 46 Cal.4th 969, 986, the appellate court explained that even though plaintiff opted out of the other class action, settlement of that action precluded plaintiff’s PAGA claims because “there is no mechanism for opting out of the judgment entered on the PAGA claim. ‘Because an aggrieved employee’s action under [PAGA] functions as a substitute for an action brought by the government itself, a judgment in that action binds all those, including nonparty aggrieved employees, who would be bound by a judgment in an action brought by the government.’”

As to the remaining PAGA claims, the court explained that “[plaintiff] purports to bring a representative action based on violations alleged to have occurred . . . [when he] was no longer employed by [defendant] and thus was not affected by any of the alleged violations . . . [T]he preclusion of [plaintiff’s] claims for the period during which he was employed by [defendant] deprives him of standing to assert claims arising exclusively after he was so employed . . . [Plaintiff’s] argument that he has standing to pursue claims based solely on violations alleged to have occurred after his termination [has no support].”