CDF Wage and Hour Task Force – Monthly Updates and Tips
On Thursday, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in the matter of Turrieta v. Lyft, Inc., which can be accessed here. In affirming the Court of Appeal’s judgment, the California Supreme Court held that an aggrieved employee’s status as the State’s proxy in an action brought under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) does not give that employee the right to seek intervention in the PAGA action of another employee, to move to vacate a judgment entered in the other employee’s action, or to require a trial court to receive and consider objections to a proposed settlement in that action. This is a significant victory for California employers, who gain a level of certainty that their negotiated settlement of a PAGA action will not be disrupted by an aggrieved employee in an overlapping PAGA action, and ultimately, finality to a PAGA action.
The Turrieta case, involved a scenario that many California employers are unfortunately all too familiar with in PAGA litigation: multiple persons claiming to be an “aggrieved employee” within the meaning of PAGA filing separate and independent lawsuits, each seeking recovery of civil penalties from the same employer for the same alleged Labor Code violations. Here, Tina Turrieta, Brando Olson, and Million Seifu worked as drivers for the ride sharing service, Lyft, Inc., and each filed separate PAGA lawsuits seeking civil penalties on behalf of all allegedly aggrieved employees for failure to pay minimum wages, overtime premium pay, and business expense reimbursements.
At the end of 2019, Turrieta and Lyft arrived at a settlement of Turrieta’s case and scheduled the requisite settlement approval hearing for January 2, 2022. Prior to this hearing, Olson and Seifu filed individual motions to intervene in the Turrieta action and asserted objections to the settlement agreement between Turrieta and Lyft. The trial court denied the intervention motions, approved the Turrieta settlement, and subsequently denied motions to vacate the judgement filed by Olson and Seifu. Olson and Seifu appealed the denial of their various motions and sought to challenge the approval of the Turrieta settlement.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of Olson and Seifu’s motions to intervene and held that Olson and Seifu lacked standing to move to vacate the judgment or to challenge the judgment on appeal. Olson then petitioned the California Supreme Court for review on the basis that, as a deputized agent for the State under PAGA, Olson has the right, on behalf of California, to intervene in the Turrieta action, to move to vacate the judgment in that action, and to have the trial court consider his objections to the settlement in that action.
The California Supreme Court granted review, specifically addressing the following issue: Does a plaintiff in a representative action filed under PAGA have the right to intervene, or object to, or move to vacate, a judgment in a related action that purports to settle the claims that plaintiff has brought on behalf of the state? The majority opinion responded with a resounding “no” – holding that an aggrieved employee’s status as the State’s proxy in a PAGA action does not give that employee the right to seek intervention in the PAGA action of another employee, to move to vacate a judgment entered in the other employee’s action, or to require a trial court to receive and consider objections to a proposed settlement in that action. However, the Court did acknowledge that “the Legislature, in its policymaking role, remains free to consider the questions we have addressed and resolved in this opinion — along with the various related policy arguments — and to decide whether statutory recognition of the rights Olson asserts is wise and/or necessary to achieve PAGA’s goals.”
Unless and until this happens, the California Supreme Court has made clear that the right to intervene in the ongoing PAGA action of another plaintiff asserting overlapping claims, to require a court to consider objections to a proposed settlement in that overlapping action, and to move to vacate the judgment in that action, would be inconsistent with the scheme the Legislature enacted, and therefore not permitted.
