CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT 

Employment

Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2023) _ Cal.5th _ , 2023 WL 4553702: The California Supreme Court ruled that where plaintiff has brought a PAGA action comprising individual and non-individual claims, an order compelling arbitration of the individual claims does not strip the plaintiff of standing as an aggrieved employee to litigate claims on behalf of other employees under PAGA. To have PAGA standing a plaintiff must be an “aggrieved employee”, someone (1) who was employed by the alleged violator and (2) against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed. (July 17, 2023.)

CALIFORNIA COURTS OF APPEAL

Civil Procedure 

Braugh v. Dow (2023) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2023 WL 4312617: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order granting defendant’s motion for relief from a default and default judgment in a partition action. Plaintiff, a lawyer, sued her former partner alleging several causes of action, including partition of real property they owned jointly. Plaintiff personally served defendant. Because she was a party, the service was not effective and the default and later default judgment were void. The trial court properly granted defendant’s motion to set aside the default and default judgment. (C.A. 2nd, July 3, 2023.) 

Park v. Nazari (2023) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2023 WL 4729968: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion to strike (Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16) plaintiff’s complaint against defendants and their attorney for fraudulent transfer, quiet title, and declaratory relief. Defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion sought to strike the complaint in its entirety. During the motion hearing, defendants’ counsel suggested the trial court could strike some, but not all of the allegations in the complaint. The trial court properly denied defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion. Because defendants moved to strike only the entire complaint, and did not identify in their motion individual claims or allegations that should be stricken even if the entire complaint were not, the trial court was permitted to deny the anti-SLAPP motion once it concluded—correctly—that the complaint presented at least one claim that did not arise from anti-SLAPP protected conduct. (C.A. 2nd, July 25, 2023.)

Employment

Thai v. International Business Machines Corp. (2023) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2023 WL 4443934: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order sustaining defendant’s demurrer, without leave to amend, to plaintiffs’ complaint alleging violation of California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA; Labor Code § 2699 et seq.), section 2802(a) which requires an employer to reimburse an employee “for all necessary expenditures . . . incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties.” Plaintiffs alleged that after Governor Newsom’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order defendant failed to reimburse plaintiffs for the expenses necessarily incurred to perform their work duties from home. The trial court sustained the demurrer, concluding that the Governor’s order was an intervening cause of the work-from-home expenses that absolved defendant of liability under section 2802. The Court of Appeal disagreed, concluding that the plain language of section 2802(a) flatly requires the employer to reimburse an employee for all expenses that are a “direct consequence of the discharge of [the employee’s] duties.” Under the statutory language, the obligation does not turn on whether the employer’s order was the proximate cause of the expenses; it turns on whether the expenses were actually due to performance of the employee’s duties. (C.A. 1st, July 11, 2023.)

Torts

Camacho v. JLG Industries (2023) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2023 WL 4618687: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order granting defendant’s motion for directed verdict in plaintiffs’ action alleging strict products liability, failure to warn, and related claims against defendant after plaintiff Raul Camacho (Raul) fell out of a scissor lift manufactured by defendant when he was installing glass panels. During the jury trial plaintiffs alleged the scissor lift as designed with a chain across the entrance invited human error, and the foreseeable risk of harm could have been avoided if defendant had marketed only its alternative design with a self-closing gate, and also alleged there was a defective warning label on the lift. At the close of evidence, defendant moved for a directed verdict. The trial court granted the motion, ruling that in order to show causation plaintiffs needed to prove if the chain had been latched, the accident would have happened anyway. The Court of Appeal disagreed, finding that plaintiffs made a prima facie showing of causation. To overcome the directed verdict motion, plaintiffs only needed to make a prima facie showing that the scissor lift as designed with a chain was a substantial factor in causing Raul’s injuries, because the alternative design with the self-closing gate would have prevented his fall. Under a risk-benefit test, it would then be defendant’s burden to prove the benefits of the chain outweighed the risks. (C.A. 4th, July 19, 2023.) n