Wage and Hour Defense Blog

The Serrano/Ducksworth defense.

If you know what I’m referring to, you don’t need to read any further.  But if you don’t, well, please read on.

A great many employment lawsuits include claims against alleged “joint employers” – for instance, a temporary staffing company and the client to which the employee was assigned, or related corporate entities that share similar names (and, perhaps, shared services, which is another issue).

And in many of those lawsuits, plaintiffs and their counsel have simply lumped the two companies together and have alleged that “defendants” engaged in unlawful conduct, without making any effort to distinguish between the two defendants, much less their alleged conduct.

With $3 million in funding from A.B. 102, California’s recent appropriations bill, the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), the administrative body charged by statute to regulate wages, hours, and working conditions, will reconvene for the first time since 2004, when it was defunded for budgetary reasons.  The IWC was established in 1913 and has gone through several changes throughout the years.  Its most recent, lasting impact on employment in California, however, consists of 17 “wage orders” regulating the wages, hours and working conditions in specific industries. 

On May 28, 2021, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a win to Walmart in a lawsuit brought by Roderick Magadia (“Magadia”) alleging violations of California’s wage statement and meal break laws.

The Ninth Circuit overturned a $102 million dollar judgment issued by United States District Judge Lucy H. Koh – comprised of $48 million in statutory damages and $54 million in civil penalties under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”).  It did so because it found that Magadia lacked Article III standing because he could not establish that he suffered ...