Last June, the California Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, 59 Cal.4th 348 (Jun. 23, 2014), a wage and hour class action. The Court held that a no-class-action arbitration clause in an employment agreement was enforceable under Concepcion, and that Concepcion had abrogated the Court's earlier opinion to the contrary in Gentry v. Superior Court, 42 Cal.4th 443 (2007). Iskanian, 59 Cal.4th at 362-66. (Gentry is discussed in this blog post; Concepcion is discussed here.)
The Court also held, however, that Concepcion did not mandate individual arbitration of the employee-plaintiff's representative PAGA claim. Instead, the contractual provision purporting to waive the right to bring such representative actions was unenforceable. Iskanian, 59 Cal.4th at 378-391.
The defendant filed a cert. petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, attempting to challenge the latter ruling. The cert. petition was denied yesterday, after one re-list. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC v. Iskanian, No. 14-341. Here is the SCOTUSblog case page with links to the petition and other filings.
In related, but much older, news, the U.S. Supreme Court also denied, last June, the cert. petition in Sonic-Calabasas A, Inc. v. Moreno, No. 13-856, another arbitration-related case. That cert. petition had challenged the California Supreme Court's decision in Sonic-Calabasas A, Inc. v. Moreno, 57 Cal.4th 1109 (2013) (discussed in this blog post). I did not have a chance to mention this development on my blog. Things were quite busy for me during the second half of last year.
Comments