MIGUEL ANGEL ROJAS-CIFUENTES, Petitioner, v. THE SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, Respondent; AMERICAN MODULAR SYSTEMS, INC., Real Party in Interest.
C085463
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (San Joaquin)
Filed 12/21/20
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION; (Super. Ct. No. STKCVUOE20150007793)
F. Clark Sueyres, Jr., Judge.
Mallison & Martinez, Marco A. Palau, Hilary Hammell, Eric S. Trabucco for Petitioner.
No appearance for Respondent.
Boutin Jones Inc., Bruce M. Timm, Kimberly A. Lucia, Andrew M. Ducart for Real Party in Interest.
The trial court, however, rejected Rojas‘s PAGA claim following American Modular‘s motion for summary adjudication. As the court noted, those seeking to bring PAGA causes of action must, before filing suit, provide notice to a certain state agency of the laws the employer allegedly violated and the “facts and theories” supporting those allegations. But, the court found, Rojas failed to satisfy this threshold requirement. In particular, although the court found Rojas provided written notice to the state before he filed suit, it found his notice failed to include sufficient facts and theories to support his claims. It thus rejected his PAGA cause of action for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
After Rojas filed a petition for writ of mandate seeking to set aside the court‘s decision, we directed American Modular to show cause why the writ should not be issued. Because, unlike the trial court, we find Rojas‘s PAGA notice supplied sufficient facts and theories to support at least some of his claims, we now issue a writ of mandate directing the trial court to set aside its order granting American Modular‘s motion for summary adjudication.
Rojas was a former employee of American Modular who was terminated in August of 2014. Shortly after, he sought to bring a representative action against American Modular under PAGA—a law that authorizes employees who have been the subject of certain
Before bringing a PAGA action, however, Rojas first needed to provide notice to American Modular and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency “of the specific provisions of [the
A year later, American Modular filed a motion for summary adjudication, contending that Rojas‘s PAGA cause of action failed as a matter of law. It reasoned that “summary adjudication in favor of AMS on [Rojas‘s PAGA] Cause of Action is proper because the Court lacks jurisdiction over [Rojas‘s] PAGA claim due to [Rojas‘s] failure to satisfy PAGA‘s administrative exhaustion requirement.” In particular, American Modular contended, Rojas‘s PAGA notice fell short of satisfying administrative exhaustion requirements because it failed to allege any “facts and theories” supporting Rojas‘s claims.
The trial court agreed, finding that Rojas failed to allege sufficient “facts and theories” in his PAGA notice for three reasons. First, it found five of the eight paragraphs in Rojas‘s PAGA notice that detailed American Modular‘s alleged violations “[we]re merely statements of the statute or statements which ‘mimic’ the statute.” Second, it found Rojas was too “non-specific as to who was harmed by the alleged violations.” And third, it noted that Rojas‘s notice “contain[ed] no allegations as to [his] status[,] failing to even identify [Rojas] as a current or former employee.” For these reasons, the court concluded that Rojas “failed to exhaust his administrative remedies by failing to provide the employer with sufficient notice.” It thus granted American Modular‘s motion. It also granted Rojas leave to amend his complaint.
After Rojas sought writ review of the court‘s decision, we directed American Modular to show cause why the writ should not be issued.2
DISCUSSION
“The Legislature enacted PAGA to remedy systemic underenforcement of many worker protections. This underenforcement was a product of two related problems. First, many
Our focus in this case is on PAGA‘s administrative exhaustion requirements for these “deputize[d] employees.” Before filing a PAGA suit, “an aggrieved employee acting on behalf of the state and other current or former employees must provide notice to the employer and the [Labor and Workforce Development Agency] ‘of the specific provisions of [the
With that background in mind, we now turn to American Modular‘s motion for summary adjudication. American Modular contended in its motion that Rojas‘s “PAGA letter amounts to ‘nothing more than a string of legal conclusions with no factual allegations or theories of liability to support them.’ ” After we directed American Modular to show cause why Rojas‘s requested relief should not be granted, American Modular modified its position somewhat. It now accepts that Rojas offered some facts and theories to support his allegations but, for several reasons, maintains these facts and theories are insufficient. Agreeing with Rojas, however, we find none of American
Before turning to the merits, we briefly address American Modular‘s effort to have Rojas‘s petition “denied without the need to even reach its merits.” Because the trial court granted Rojas leave to amend his complaint, American Modular contends Rojas “has a plain, speedy, and adequate alternative remedy” that should foreclose the availability of writ relief. But Rojas‘s ability to file an amended complaint is no remedy at all. The trial court found Rojas‘s PAGA cause of action failed because his PAGA notice, not his complaint, was deficient. And no change Rojas may make to his complaint can ever remedy this believed flaw in his PAGA notice.
Turning to the merits, American Modular begins with several arguments tracking the trial court‘s reasoning. First, following the trial court‘s logic, it asserts that five of Rojas‘s eight paragraphs detailing American Modular‘s alleged violations “provide[d] only a statement mimicking the relevant statutory language.” But even supposing an employee‘s PAGA notice falls short when it couches alleged violations in the language of the relevant statute, that principle would offer American Modular little help here. At least some of the five referenced paragraphs supplied much more than American Modular supposes. One of those paragraphs, for example, stated the following: American Modular violated “wage statement requirements by providing workers with wage statements that are inaccurate as to hours worked, total net and gross wages earned and applicable hourly or piece rates. The inaccuracies stem from the failure to pay for all hours worked, within the meaning of the wage orders, and failing to pay rest and meal period premiums.” Rojas then described elsewhere in his notice the cause of American
Rojas‘s allegations here thus included an ultimate fact (American Modular provided workers with wage statements that inaccurately listed hours worked, wages earned, and applicable hourly or piece rates) and supportive evidentiary facts (American Modular‘s inaccurate wage statements resulted from American Modular‘s failure to pay workers for all hours worked and rest and meal periods missed—and this failure to pay, in turn, resulted from American Modular‘s failure to compensate for, among other things, time spent “donning and doffing“). American Modular‘s contention, then, that this and several other paragraphs “provide[d] only a statement mimicking the relevant statutory language” is wrong. To be sure, Rojas‘s alleged “facts and theories” here did not exhaustively explain why American Modular‘s wage statements were inadequate. But his allegations sufficed to notify American Modular and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency of the general basis for this claim. And considering Williams and later cases, these allegations were at least enough to supply the minimum “facts and theories” necessary to support that claim. (See Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 545 [“facts and theories” alleged in a PAGA notice need not “satisfy a particular threshold of weightiness“]; Brown v. Ralphs Grocery Co., supra, 28 Cal.App.5th at p. 838 [finding adequate a PAGA notice that alleged an employer provided inaccurate wage statements because it ” ‘fail[ed] to include the name and address of the legal entity that is the employer’ “]; Cinemark, supra, 705 Fed. Appx. at p. 645.)
Similarly, once more following the trial court‘s reasoning, American Modular contends Rojas‘s notice “was deficient because it failed to . . . provide a statement regarding [Rojas‘s] own position and status.” Rojas‘s notice perhaps could have been more detailed in this regard. He identified himself as an “aggrieved employee“—which, in PAGA parlance, means he “was employed [at some point] by the alleged violator” (
Even so, we find the alleged facts in his notice sufficient. Considering the whole of Rojas‘s allegations, it is at least clear that Rojas asserted that American Modular is currently committing the listed violations against its nonexempt employees. And although the state agency reviewing this notice might be left to wonder when these violations began, that is not reason enough to find the notice wholly inadequate. A complaint, as an analogue, is generally not deficient merely because it fails to describe the particular date when a defendant‘s misconduct began. (See People v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 283, 288 [complaint that accused the defendants of making false and misleading statements, but without noting “the time and place of the misrepresentations,”
Nor do we find anything in PAGA as a whole supporting this proposition. To the contrary, taking our cues from Williams, we find that requiring some sort of heightened pleading standard at the notice stage would “undercut the clear legislative purposes the act was designed to serve.” (Williams, supra, 3 Cal.5th at p. 546.) PAGA, again, sought to “expand[] the universe of those who might enforce the law, and the sanctions violators might be subject to,” to “remediate present violations [of the
Branching out from the trial court‘s reasoning, American Modular also contends Rojas‘s PAGA notice was deficient because it “fail[ed] to identify any specific policy or practice of AMS that could have allowed AMS and the [Labor and Workforce Development Agency] to realistically ascertain what allegedly gave rise to the purported violations.” But Rojas did allege specific practices that he believed unlawful. Again, for
Finally, because Rojas‘s PAGA claim is based on American Modular‘s alleged violation of eight distinct labor laws, American Modular asks that we at least consider whether it is entitled to summary adjudication relating to some of those eight laws. In explaining its argument, American Modular acknowledges that summary adjudication under
We decline to do so. We agree Rojas‘s PAGA claim can be regarded as multiple causes of action for purposes of summary adjudication. (See Silva v. See‘s Candy Shops, Inc. (2016) 7 Cal.App.5th 235, 257 [each set of allegations in a cause of action that raises a distinct theory of liability may be regarded as a distinct cause of action for purposes of summary adjudication].) But we decline to consider whether summary adjudication, even if not appropriate for all these causes of action together, would at least be appropriate for some of them. At the trial level, American Modular limited its challenge to the entirety of Rojas‘s PAGA claim. It never sought summary adjudication for each of the eight parts of Rojas‘s PAGA cause of action; it instead treated the PAGA cause of action as a single claim and sought summary adjudication of the entirety of this claim.
American Modular now, however, attempts to change the relevant legal question. No longer should we consider whether Rojas‘s PAGA cause of action, considered as a single unit, could be summarily adjudicated. Instead, American Modular now contends, we should consider whether any part of Rojas‘s PAGA cause of action could be summarily adjudicated. But that is a very different issue than the one Rojas faced and the trial court considered below. As American Modular framed the issue below, Rojas needed to show only that some part of his PAGA cause of action could not be summarily adjudicated to ensure a ruling in his favor. And, not surprisingly, that was all Rojas attempted to show in opposing American Modular‘s motion. But as American Modular frames the issue now, for the first time in its brief on appeal, Rojas instead should have attempted to show that all eight parts of his PAGA cause of action could not be summarily adjudicated. We decline, however, to consider this new theory for the first time on appeal. (See Nellie Gail Ranch Owners Assn. v. McMullin (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th
DISPOSITION
Let a writ of mandate issue directing the trial court to set aside its order granting real party American Modular‘s motion for summary adjudication and to enter a new order denying that motion. Rojas is entitled to recover his costs in this original proceeding. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.493(a)(1)(A).)
/s/
BLEASE, Acting P.J.
We concur:
/s/
MURRAY, J.
/s/
RENNER, J.