Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 337
purpose is to augment the limited enforcement capability of the Labor Workforce
Development Agency (LWDA) by empowering employees to enforce the Labor Code as
representatives of the Agency. Id. at *32. The civil penalties recovered in a PAGA action
are recovered on the state's behalf and are intended to remediate present violations and
deter future ones, not to redress employees' injuries. Id. at *33. The court of appeal
determined that allowing courts to dismiss PAGA claims based on manageability
concerns would interfere with the PAGA's express design as a law enforcement
mechanism, and create an extra hurdle that does not apply to LWDA enforcement
actions. Id. at *34-35. The court of appeal therefore reversed the trial court’s ruling
dismissing the PAGA claims as unmanageable. Id. at *37.
California courts, however, in appropriate circumstances will deny class certification
based on lack of class-wide proof or problems with the plaintiff’s own claims. A prime
example is Concho, et al. v. Sky Billiards, 2022 Cal. Super. LEXIS 29304 (Cal. Super.
Ct. May 2, 2022). The plaintiffs, a group of hourly employees of a home furniture store,
brought a class action complaint on behalf of all California non-exempt employees
alleging failure to provide meal and rest periods, and failure to properly reimburse for
business expenses. Id. at *1. The defendant asserted that the named plaintiff was not a
credible witness based on discrepancies between her declaration and deposition
testimony. Recognizing that a plaintiff may not be an adequate class representative if he
or she has serious credibility issues, the trial court agreed with the defendant, finding
that although the named plaintiff’s declaration claimed her and other putative class
members had to use their personal phones due to the limited phones at the warehouse,
this was contradicted by deposition testimony that the plaintiff had a computer and
phone at her desk, in addition to a radio unit to communicate with supervisors (among
other serious discrepancies). Id. at *3. The trial court found it problematic that the
plaintiff did not argue that the written policies, on their face, disclosed violations; rather
the plaintiff argued that the implementation of the policies was unlawful, and the
plaintiff's declaration was the sole evidence regarding those allegedly illegal practices.
Id. at *7. Since the trial court found that the plaintiff's declaration was not credible, it
ruled the plaintiff had not met her burden of proving, by a preponderance of the
evidence, that common issues pertaining to the implementation of the policies
predominate, and there was no other credible evidence before the court that the
defendant failed to implement its policies as written. Therefore, the court denied class
certification with prejudice. Id. at *9.
Finally, in Carbajal, et al. v. Imperial Maintenance Services, 2022 Cal. App. Unpub.
LEXIS 2743 (Cal. App. 3d Dist. May 5, 2022), the plaintiffs, a group of janitors, filed a
class action against the defendant, a janitorial company, alleging failure to pay for all
hours worked, denial of meal breaks, inaccurate wage statements, failure to timely pay
all wages, asserting a separate sub-class for each claim. Id. at *1. To support their
motion for class certification, the plaintiffs asserted, among other things, that because
the defendant’s records failed to show that its employees received meal breaks, the trial
court should presume that its employees did not in fact receive meal breaks. Id. at *2.
The trial court denied class certification on all claims on the grounds that the plaintiffs’
allegations would require too many individualized inquiries to be appropriate for class
treatment. Id. The plaintiffs appealed, contending that the trial court improperly denied
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
