Herrera v. CarMax: Defendant Cannot Block Employees’ PAGA Action

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U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald refused to enjoin plaintiffs in a PAGA (Private Attorneys General Act) action filed in state court based on a prior ruling in the federal case ordering the plaintiffs’ wage-and-hour class action claims against CarMax to arbitration. Herrera, et al. v. CarMax Auto Superstores California, LLC, No. 5:14-cv-00776 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 27, 2014) (slip op. available here). The putative class action alleged that the used car retailer failed to sufficiently compensate non-exempt piece-rate employees, such as mechanics and detailers, for all hours worked. The court’s refusal was based in part on its finding that, by filing the state action, the plaintiffs were not attempting to circumvent the arbitration order in the federal case.

The first action was filed in state court in March 2014; CarMax removed the suit and defeated the plaintiffs’ efforts to remand the suit back to state court in June. CarMax then filed a motion to compel arbitration of the class claims, which the district court granted in July, and dismissed the case. The same plaintiffs then filed a second action in California state court in June, based on the same labor code violations as in the federal lawsuit, but only seeking civil penalties under the PAGA. The federal district court avoided rendering a decision on the merits of the res judicata issue, deferring it to the state court, and held that the injunction should not be issued under an exception to the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act (28 U.S.C. § 2283) permits a federal court to enjoin a state court action to “protect or effectuate its judgments” under the “relitigation exception.”

Although it largely deferred the res judicata issue to the state court, the federal district court noted that, because none of the substantive legal questions involved in the second action had been raised in the first action, the second lawsuit “presents the more difficult question, never considered by this Court, whether Plaintiffs’ PAGA claims may be compelled to arbitration . . . [and] never considered the merits of Plaintiffs’ underlying allegations of labor law violations.” Slip op. at 5. The district court also rejected CarMax’s argument that the plaintiffs were improperly attempting to circumvent the federal court’s arbitration ruling, finding instead that “Plaintiffs sought a state forum for their indisputably state-law PAGA claims . . . ” and acted properly to “reserve certain state law claims for resolution in the state courts.” Id. at 7 (emphasis added). Citing Iskanian v. CLS Transportation LLC (59 Cal. 4th 348 (2014)) and Arias v. Superior Court (46 Cal. 4th 969 (2009)), the court stated that “whether an order compelling arbitration of claims of labor law violations can preclude claims for PAGA remedies arising from the same violations is a particularly sensitive question of state law that has not been thoroughly addressed in the state courts. . . . [but g]iven the developments in California law on the precise contours of PAGA, these questions would be best answered by the state courts.” Id. at 6.