Court of Appeals issues important decision on the importance of manageability of PAGA claims

In Wesson v. Staples the Office Superstore, LLC, the California Court of Appeals held that trial courts have the inherent authority to strike as unmanageable a claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). While United States District Courts have previously recognized such inherent authority, this is the first published California appellate decision to do so expressly.

In Wesson, plaintiff brought a putative class action and PAGA representative claim on behalf of himself and 345 current and former Staples General Managers (GMs) alleging Staples had misclassified its GMs as exempt employees. After defeating class certification, Staples filed a motion to strike the PAGA claim contending resolution of whether each of the 345 GMs were properly classified as exempt would require individualized proof as to each GM and, as a consequence the claim would be unmanageable. In opposition, plaintiff argued the trial court lacked inherent authority to ensure PAGA actions were manageable. The trial court granted Staples' motion to strike, and the Court of Appeal affirmed concluding that: "(1) courts have inherent authority to ensure that PAGA claims can be fairly and efficiently tried and, if necessary, may strike claims that cannot be rendered manageable; (2) as a matter of due process, defendants are entitled to a fair opportunity to litigate available affirmative defenses, and a court's manageability assessment should account for them; and (3) given the state of the record and Wesson's lack of cooperation with the trial court's manageability inquiry, the court did not abuse its discretion in striking his PAGA claim as unmanageable." Going forward, employers with active PAGA claims may want to consider moving to strike if, on the facts, they can argue the claim is unmanageable.