Case Title: Voris v. Lampert

Citation: 

Docket Number: S241812

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2019-08-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
BRETT VORIS, 
Plaintiff and Appellant, 
v. 
GREG LAMPERT, 
Defendant and Respondent. 
 
S241812 
 
Second Appellate District, Division Three 
B265747 
 
Los Angeles County Superior Court 
BC408562 
 
 
August 15, 2019 
 
Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which 
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Chin, Corrigan, and 
Groban concurred. 
 
Justice Cuéllar filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Liu 
concurred. 
 
 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT  
S241812 
 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
For a little more than a year, Brett Voris worked alongside 
Greg Lampert to launch three start-up ventures, partly in 
return for a promise of later payment of wages.  But after a 
falling out, Voris was fired and the promised compensation 
never materialized.  Voris sued the companies and won, 
successfully invoking both contract-based and statutory 
remedies for the nonpayment of wages.  He now seeks to hold 
Lampert personally responsible for the unpaid wages on a 
theory of common law conversion.  Voris claims that by failing 
to pay the wages, the companies converted his personal property 
to their own use and that Lampert is individually liable for the 
companies’ misconduct.  The question before us is whether such 
a conversion claim is cognizable.  We conclude it is not:  The 
conversion tort is not the right fit for the wrong that Voris 
alleges, nor is it the right fix for the deficiencies Voris perceives 
in the existing system of remedies for wage nonpayment.  We 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which reached a 
similar conclusion. 
I. 
 
In November 2005, Voris joined Lampert and a friend, 
Ryan Bristol, to launch a real estate investment company called 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
2 
Premier Ten Thirty One Capital (PropPoint).1  Voris performed 
marketing and advertising work for PropPoint and was later 
recruited to do similar work for two other ventures formed by 
Lampert and Bristol:  Liquiddium Capital Partners, LLC 
(Liquiddium) and Sportfolio, Inc. (Sportfolio).  Voris worked for 
all three companies in exchange for promises of later payment 
of wages, stock, or both.  He also invested significant sums of 
money in PropPoint and Liquiddium in exchange for additional 
equity. 
 
In the fall of 2006, Voris discovered what he believed to be 
improprieties in his colleagues’ management of the companies’ 
finances.  He raised his concerns with Lampert and Bristol.  In 
early 2007, after a series of contentious negotiations, Voris’s 
employment with all three companies was terminated.  Save for 
a portion of compensation paid by PropPoint during his 
employment, Voris was never paid the wages or stock he was 
owed.   
 
Voris sued the three companies, as well as Bristol and 
Lampert.  The operative complaint raised 24 causes of action, 
including breach of oral contract, quantum meruit, fraud, failure 
to pay wages in violation of the Labor Code, conversion, breach 
of the implied covenant of good faith, and breach of fiduciary 
duty.  Voris sought $91,000 in unpaid wages from PropPoint, 
$66,000 in unpaid wages from Sportfolio, and various 
percentages of equity in all three companies.  He also sought to 
                                        
1  
This case comes to us following the grant of judgment on 
the pleadings, so we accept as true all material facts alleged in 
the operative complaint.  (Angelucci v. Century Supper Club 
(2007) 41 Cal.4th 160, 166 (Angelucci).)   
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
3 
hold Lampert and Bristol personally liable on all counts based 
on a theory of alter ego liability.   
 
Voris prevailed against all three companies.  His claims 
against Sportfolio and Liquiddium were tried to a jury.2  The 
jury found in Voris’s favor on the claims against Sportfolio for 
breach of contract, failure to pay wages, failure to pay for 
services rendered, and conversion of stock.  The jury awarded 
$70,782 in damages.  The jury also found in Voris’s favor against 
Liquiddium on the claims for breach of contract and conversion 
of stock.  The jury awarded $100,218, including an award of 
$2,500 in punitive damages on the stock conversion claim.  
Voris’s claims against PropPoint proceeded to a bench trial.  
PropPoint did not enter an appearance, and the court ruled in 
Voris’s favor on the claims for breach of contract, quantum 
meruit, failure to pay wages in violation of the Labor Code, and 
conversion of stock and wages.  The court awarded Voris 
$171,951 in damages, plus prejudgment interest, costs, and 
attorney fees.   
 
Although Voris prevailed against all three companies, he 
alleges that his efforts to collect on the judgments have been 
frustrated due to the companies’ lack of funds and assets.  Voris 
has therefore now focused his efforts on Lampert, the remaining 
individual defendant. 
 
At the outset of the litigation, Lampert had successfully 
demurred to the claims of fraud and breach of the implied 
covenant of good faith.  He then filed a motion for summary 
judgment on the remaining claims, citing Voris’s barebones 
responses to special interrogatories pertaining to the alter ego 
                                        
2
  
Bristol was also a defendant in the jury trial, but he 
successfully moved for nonsuit.   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
4 
allegations.  The trial court agreed that Voris failed to 
adequately support his claims of alter ego liability and granted 
Lampert’s motion for summary judgment.  In an unpublished 
decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed in part and reversed in 
part.  It upheld the trial court’s ruling on Voris’s alter ego 
allegations based on his failure to identify supporting facts.  But 
the Court of Appeal nevertheless reversed the trial court’s grant 
of summary judgment with respect to Voris’s conversion claims, 
explaining that individual officers may be held personally liable 
for their intentional torts “without any need to pierce the 
corporate veil.” 
 
On remand before the trial court, Lampert moved for 
judgment on the pleadings on the stock and wage conversion 
claims.  He argued that Voris failed to allege a sufficient 
deprivation of ownership interests in the stocks and that 
California law does not recognize a claim for the conversion of 
wages.  The court granted the motions, and Voris again 
appealed.   
 
In a second unpublished decision, the Court of Appeal once 
again affirmed the trial court in part and reversed in part.  All 
three justices agreed that Voris’s stock conversion claims should 
be permitted to proceed; they relied for this ruling on a 
“ ‘ “uniform rule of law that shares of stock in a company are 
subject to an action in conversion.” ’ ”3  But the justices were 
                                        
3  
No party has challenged the Court of Appeal’s ruling that 
Voris pleaded a proper claim for stock conversion, so we do not 
address that ruling here.  To the extent the dissent suggests we 
have expressed an opinion on the stock conversion issue (see dis. 
opn., post, at pp. 2, 10–11, 13), it is simply mistaken.  The 
dissent is therefore also mistaken in suggesting that any 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
5 
divided on whether Voris had pleaded a cognizable claim for 
conversion of wages—a claim that had not been previously 
recognized in California precedent.4  The majority concluded 
that neither existing case law nor policy considerations 
warranted extending the tort of conversion to the wage context.  
The majority observed that the Labor Code already requires 
prompt payment of a discharged employee (Lab. Code, § 201) 
and authorizes penalties for noncompliance (id., § 203).  “[I]f 
Voris’s approach were credited,” the Court of Appeal reasoned, 
“any claimed wage and hour violation would give rise to tort 
liability for conversion as well as the potential for punitive 
damages.”  The concurring and dissenting justice took a 
                                        
distinction, or lack thereof, between unpaid stock shares and 
unpaid wages is “fundamental to [our] conclusion” in this case.  
(Id. at p. 10.) 
4  
Although the Court of Appeal in this case was the first 
California appellate court to address the viability of a claim for 
the conversion of earned but unpaid wages, several federal 
district courts have attempted to predict how we would decide 
the issue, and they have reached divergent conclusions.  
(Compare Sims v. AT & T Mobility Services LLC (E.D.Cal. 2013) 
955 F.Supp.2d 1110, 1118–1120 [recognizing conversion claim 
for unpaid wages under California law]; Rodriguez v. 
Cleansource, Inc. (S.D.Cal. Aug. 20, 2015, No. 14-cv-0789-L 
(DHB)) 2015 WL 5007815, at *9 [same]; Alvarenga v. Carlson 
Wagonlit Travel, Inc. (E.D.Cal. Feb. 8, 2016, No. 1:15–cv-01560-
AWI-BAM) 2016 WL 466132, at *4 [same] with Jacobs v. 
Genesco, Inc. (E.D.Cal. Sept. 3, 2008, No. CIV. S-08-1666 FCD 
DAD) 2008 WL 7836412 [rejecting wage conversion claim under 
California law]; In re Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wage and Hour Lit. 
(N.D.Cal. 2007) 505 F.Supp.2d 609, 619 [same]; Vasquez v. 
Coast Valley Roofing Inc. (E.D.Cal. June 6, 2007, No. CV-F-07-
227 OWW/DLB) 2007 WL 1660972, at *10 [same].)   
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
6 
different view.  He opined that “employees have a vested 
property interest in their earned wages, that failure to pay them 
is a legal wrong that interferes with this property interest, and 
that an action for conversion may therefore be brought to 
recover unpaid wages.” 
 
We granted review to address this disagreement.  Our 
review is de novo.  (Angelucci, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 166.)5 
II. 
 
To place the question before us in its proper context, we 
begin with a brief overview of existing law governing the 
payment of workers’ wages.  The employment relationship, we 
                                        
5  
Voris requests that we take judicial notice of four 
newspaper articles, a criminal indictment mentioned in two of 
those articles, and a study published by the National 
Employment Law Project.  We deny Voris’s requests for judicial 
notice.  The four news articles that he asks us to notice are not 
proper authorities to establish the truth of the matters asserted 
therein.  (Zelig v. County of Los Angeles (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1112, 
1141, fn. 6 [“The truth of the content of the articles is not a 
proper matter for judicial notice, and the circumstance that the 
articles were published is irrelevant to our discussion.”].)  
Although we have discretion to take judicial notice of the 
criminal indictment as a court record (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. 
(d), 459), we deny Voris’s request; the truth of the matters 
alleged in the indictment is not the proper subject of judicial 
notice, and the existence of the indictment alone is irrelevant to 
our decision (Mangini v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (1994) 7 
Cal.4th 1057, 1063–1064; Kilroy v. State of California (2004) 119 
Cal.App.4th 140, 145).  As for the study that Voris cites, we need 
not take separate judicial notice of it, because it is already cited 
and discussed in the legislative history of Senate Bill No. 588, 
which we have properly noticed at footnote 15.  (Quelimane Co. 
v. Stewart Title Guaranty Co. (1998) 19 Cal.4th 26, 45, fn. 9 
[court can take judicial notice of published legislative history].) 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
7 
have explained, is “fundamentally contractual,” meaning it is 
governed in the first instance by the mutual promises made 
between employer and employee.  (Foley v. Interactive Data 
Corp. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 654, 696 (Foley); see Guz v. Bechtel 
National, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 317, 352.)  The promise to pay 
money in return for services rendered lies at the heart of this 
relationship.  Historically, when that promise has been broken, 
the “usual remedy” has been an action for breach of contract.  
(Glendale City Employees’ Assn., Inc. v. City of Glendale (1975) 
15 Cal.3d 328, 343, citing Elevator Operators etc. Union v. 
Newman (1947) 30 Cal.2d 799, 808, and cases cited therein.)  
Even in the absence of an explicit promise for payment, the law 
will 
imply 
one, 
and 
thus 
authorize 
recovery, 
when 
circumstances indicate that the parties understood the 
employee was not volunteering his or her services free of charge.  
(E.g., Huskinson & Brown v. Wolf (2004) 32 Cal.4th 453, 458 
[describing principle of quantum meruit].)  
 
Beginning more than a century ago, the Legislature began 
to supplement existing contract remedies with additional 
worker protections designed to “safeguard” the worker “in his 
relations to his employer in respect of hours of labor and the 
compensation to be paid for his labor.”  (Moore v. Indian Spring 
etc. Min. Co. (1918) 37 Cal.App. 370, 379 (Indian Spring); see In 
re Ballestra (1916) 173 Cal. 657 (Ballestra).)  The end product is 
what we have described as “a mass of legislation touching upon 
almost every aspect of the employer-employee relationship.”  
(Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980) 27 Cal.3d 167, 178.)  As 
relevant here, the Legislature has repeatedly acted to ensure 
employees receive prompt and full compensation for their labor.  
Recognizing that the problem of wage nonpayment can take a 
number of forms, the Legislature has responded with a variety 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
8 
of targeted legislative solutions.  (See, e.g., In re Trombley (1948) 
31 Cal.2d 801, 809–810 (Trombley) [criminal penalties for 
willful failure to timely pay wages due]; Ballestra, at pp. 658–
659 [statutory prohibition on payment of wages using 
nonnegotiable instruments]; Reid v. Overland Machined 
Products (1961) 55 Cal.2d 203 [statutory ban on withholding 
wages as a condition of settling wage disputes].)  Underlying 
each of these enactments has been the recognition that prompt 
and complete wage payments are of critical importance to the 
well-being of workers, their families, and the public at large.  
(E.g., Trombley, at pp. 809–810.) 
 
Voris relied on existing contract and statutory remedies in 
obtaining judgments against his three former employers.  But 
he claims he has been unable to collect on the judgments 
because Lampert deliberately ran down the companies’ accounts 
and “managed the employer startups into insolvency.”  To 
ensure effective relief, Voris asks us to supplement the existing 
remedial scheme with a common law cause of action for 
conversion of unpaid wages.  Although the obligation to pay 
wages belongs to the employer (here, the three start-up 
companies), Voris further asks us to recognize a claim against 
individual officers who have either directed or participated in 
the employer’s failure to pay.  (See Frances T. v. Village Green 
Owners Assn. (1986) 42 Cal.3d 490, 504 (Frances T.).)  Putting 
these two pieces together, Voris seeks to hold Lampert 
personally liable, in tort, for withholding the money Voris is 
owed. 
 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
9 
III. 
 
As Voris acknowledges, no precedential decision of any 
California court to date has authorized a conversion claim based 
on the nonpayment of wages.6  Given how often the problem 
                                        
6  
Voris points to a handful of other jurisdictions that have 
mentioned such a remedy, but we have found no reasoned state 
or federal precedential decision holding that a cause of action for 
conversion will lie based on the ordinary nonpayment of wages.   
 
Many of the jurisdictions that have recognized conversion 
claims involving wages have done so in meaningfully different 
contexts, for instance where an employee’s wages were 
garnished or assigned to a third party.  (E.g., McGown v. 
Silverman & Borenstein, PLLC (D.Del. Feb. 7, 2014, No. 13-cv-
748-RGA/MPT) 2014 WL 545903 [applying New Jersey law and 
upholding conversion claim against collection agency for 
improperly garnishing employee’s wages]; Jordet v. Jordet (N.D. 
2015) 861 N.W.2d 147 [upholding conversion claim against 
spouse for wages improperly garnished for spousal support]; 
Giles v. General Motors Corp. (2003) 344 Ill.App.3d 1191 
[upholding conversion claim for wages withheld by employer 
purportedly pursuant to court order for spousal support]; Bell 
Finance Co. v. Johnson (1935) 180 Ga. 567 [upholding 
conversion claim against employee for failure to transfer wages 
assigned by employee to third party].) 
 
The jurisdictions that have mentioned the conversion of 
wages in more comparable contexts have done so with little 
meaningful analysis.  (E.g., Ocean Club Community Assn., Inc. 
v. Curtis (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 2006) 935 So.2d 513 [applying 
Florida law and primarily discussing attorney fees in the 
context of a successful claim for the conversion of unpaid wages]; 
Cork v. Applebee’s, Inc. (2000) 239 Mich.App. 311, 317 
[mentioning conversion claim related to wages]; Dempsey 
Brothers Dairies, Inc. v. Blalock (1984) 173 Ga.App. 7, 8 
[analyzing the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and concluding 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
10 
occurs, the lack of authority for a conversion remedy is notable.7  
It is also unsurprising, for the failure to pay wages does not fit 
easily with the traditional understanding of the conversion tort. 
 
Conversion is an “ancient theory of recovery” with roots in 
the common law action of trover.  (Ricks, The Conversion of 
Intangible Property:  Bursting the Ancient Trover Bottle with 
New Wine (1991) 1991 B.Y.U. L.Rev. 1681, 1683; see id. at 
pp. 1683–1685 [tracing early development of conversion].)  “This 
action originated at an early date as a remedy against the finder 
of lost goods who refused to return them to the owner but 
instead ‘converted’ them to his own use.”  (Rest.2d Torts, § 222A, 
com. a., p. 431.)  Over time, the action was extended to cases 
involving “dispossession, or . . . withholding possession by 
                                        
that it does not preclude a conversion claim for wages credited 
against inventory shortages].) 
7 
Citing a handful of examples, the dissent asserts that 
“plaintiffs in wage cases have routinely included a claim for 
conversion,” suggesting that this practice is more telling than 
the lack of any precedent approving such a cause of action.  (Dis. 
opn., post, at p. 7; id. at pp. 7–8 [citing cases].)  We find these 
examples less telling than the dissent.  It goes without saying 
that a plaintiff’s allegations cannot determine the meaning of 
the law, and cases containing passing mentions of conversion 
claims are not authority for the proposition that such claims are 
cognizable—or even that they have generally been assumed to 
be cognizable.  (See, e.g., California Building Industry Assn. v. 
State Water Resources Control Bd. (2018) 4 Cal.5th 1032, 1043 
[“It is axiomatic that cases are not authority for propositions 
that are not considered.”]; cf., e.g., Gentry v. Superior Court 
(2007) 42 Cal.4th 443, 455, fn. 3 [declining to address the 
plaintiff’s theory of conversion because all of the plaintiff’s 
claims were based on the defendant’s alleged violation of 
overtime laws, which were enforceable under the Labor Code 
itself].) 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
11 
others than finders.”  (Id. at p. 432.)  Today, the tort of 
conversion is understood more generally as “the wrongful 
exercise of dominion over personal property of another.”  (5 
Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (11th ed. 2017) Torts, § 810, 
p. 1115; see, e.g., Steele v. Marsicano (1894) 102 Cal. 666, 669.) 
 
As it has developed in California, the tort comprises three 
elements:  “(a) plaintiff’s ownership or right to possession of 
personal property, (b) defendant’s disposition of property in a 
manner inconsistent with plaintiff’s property rights, and (c) 
resulting damages.”  (5 Witkin, supra, § 810, p. 1115; Welco 
Electronics, Inc. v. Mora (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 202, 208.)  
Notably absent from this formula is any element of wrongful 
intent or motive; in California, conversion is a “strict liability 
tort.”  (Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990) 51 
Cal.3d 120, 144 (Moore); id. at p. 144, fn. 38 [“ ‘ “conversion rests 
neither in the knowledge nor the intent of the defendant” ’ ”]; 
accord, Poggi v. Scott (1914) 167 Cal. 372, 375 (Poggi) [“neither 
good nor bad faith, neither care nor negligence, neither 
knowledge nor ignorance, are of the gist of the action. . . .  ‘[T]he 
tort consists in the breach of what may be called an absolute 
duty . . . .’ ”].)   
 
A successful plaintiff in a conversion action is entitled to 
recover “[t]he value of the property at the time of the conversion, 
with the interest from that time, or, an amount sufficient to 
indemnify the party injured for the loss which is the natural, 
reasonable and proximate result of the wrongful act complained 
of and which a proper degree of prudence on his part would not 
have averted” plus “fair compensation for the time and money 
properly expended in pursuit of the property.”  (Civ. Code, 
§ 3336; see also 5 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (11th ed. 2017) 
Torts, § 1906, p. 1357.)  Punitive damages are recoverable upon 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
12 
a showing of malice, fraud, or oppression.  (Civ. Code, § 3294, 
subd. (a); accord, Haigler v. Donnelly (1941) 18 Cal.2d 674, 681 
(Haigler); Krusi v. Bear, Stearns & Co. (1983) 144 Cal.App.3d 
664.)  And the Courts of Appeal have held that emotional 
distress damages are also recoverable by the victim of 
conversion in appropriate circumstances.  (Spates v. Dameron 
Hospital Assn. (2003) 114 Cal.App.4th 208, 221; Gonzales v. 
Personal Storage, Inc. (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 464, 476.) 
 
The 
particular 
question 
before 
us 
concerns 
the 
applicability of the conversion tort to a claim for money.  
Although the question was once the matter of some controversy, 
California law now holds that property subject to a conversion 
claim need not be tangible in form; intangible property interests, 
too, can be converted.  (Payne v. Elliot (1880) 54 Cal. 339, 342 
(Payne) [recognizing conversion claim related to ownership 
interests and monetary value represented by stock shares, 
irrespective of the conversion of tangible stock certificates].)  But 
the law has been careful to distinguish proper claims for the 
conversion of money from other types of monetary claims more 
appropriately dealt with under other theories of recovery.  Thus, 
although our law has dispensed with the old requirement that 
“each coin or bill be earmarked,” it remains the case that “money 
cannot be the subject of an action for conversion unless a specific 
sum capable of identification is involved.”  (Haigler, supra, 18 
Cal.2d at p. 681; see PCO, Inc. v. Christensen, Miller, Frank, 
Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro, LLP (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 
384, 395 (PCO).)  “[W]here the money or fund is not identified 
as a specific thing the action is to be considered as one upon 
contract or for debt”—or perhaps upon some other appropriate 
theory—but “not for conversion.”  (Baxter v. King (1927) 81 
Cal.App. 192, 194 (Baxter); see Vu v. California Commerce Club, 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
13 
Inc. (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 229, 231, 235 [rejecting conversion 
claim where the plaintiff could not identify specific sum but only 
approximate monetary losses]; PCO, at p. 397 [same].) 
 
Equally important, the “specific thing” at issue (Baxter, 
supra, 81 Cal.App. at p. 194) must be a thing to which the 
plaintiff has a right of ownership or possession—a right with 
which the defendant has interfered by virtue of its own 
disposition of the property.  This means that “[a] cause of action 
for conversion of money can be stated only where a defendant 
interferes with the plaintiff’s possessory interest in a specific, 
identifiable sum”; “the simple failure to pay money owed does 
not constitute conversion.”  (Kim v. Westmoore Partners, Inc. 
(2011) 201 Cal.App.4th 267, 284.)  Were it otherwise, the tort of 
conversion would swallow the significant category of contract 
claims that are based on the failure to satisfy “ ‘mere contractual 
right[s] of payment.’ ”  (Sanowicz v. Bacal (2015) 234 
Cal.App.4th 1027, 1041 (Sanowicz); see Imperial Valley L. Co. v. 
Globe G. & M. Co. (1921) 187 Cal. 352, 353–354.)  Contractual 
provisions may, of course, determine whether the plaintiff has a 
possessory right to certain funds in the defendant’s hands.  (See, 
e.g., Fischer v. Machado (1996) 50 Cal.App.4th 1069, 1072–1074 
(Fischer) [agency agreement established principal sellers’ legal 
entitlement to converted commissions].)  But to put the matter 
simply, a “plaintiff has no claim for conversion merely because 
the defendant has a bank account and owes the plaintiff money.”  
(3 Dobbs et al., Law of Torts (2d ed. 2011) § 711, p. 807.)8  
                                        
8  
The dissent latches onto our observation in Trombley that 
“wages are not ordinary debts” (Trombley, supra, 31 Cal.2d at 
p. 809), and infers from this statement that “unpaid wages are 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
14 
 
Consistent with this understanding, cases recognizing 
claims for the conversion of money “typically involve those who 
have misappropriated, commingled, or misapplied specific funds 
held for the benefit of others.”  (PCO, supra, 150 Cal.App.4th at 
p. 396.)  For instance, one California court has held that a real 
estate agent may be liable for conversion where he had accepted 
commissions on behalf of himself and a business partner, but 
refused to give the partner his share.  (Sanowicz, supra, 234 
Cal.App.4th at p. 1042.)  Another has held that a sales agent 
may be liable for the conversion of proceeds from a consignment 
sale where the agent did not remit any portion of the proceeds 
to the principal seller.  (Fischer, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th at 
pp. 1072–1074.)  And another has held that a client may be 
liable to an attorney for conversion of attorney fees received as 
part of a settlement, where a lien established the attorney’s 
ownership of the fees in question.  (Weiss v. Marcus (1975) 51 
Cal.App.3d 590, 599 (Weiss).)   
 
The 
dissent 
sees 
these 
cases 
as 
functionally 
indistinguishable from this one; after all, the dissent reasons, 
all of these cases involve, at some level, a claim to money earned 
                                        
not merely contractual obligations to pay a sum” (dis. opn., post, 
at 
p. 3). 
 
Our 
decision 
in 
Trombley 
addressed 
the 
constitutionality of a statute that criminalized the willful 
nonpayment of wages.  (Trombley, at pp. 804–810.)  We 
explained that “an employer, who, having the ability to pay, 
intentionally refuses to pay wages he knows are due, 
perpetrates a ‘fraud’ within the meaning of the provision which 
excepts ‘cases of fraud’ ” from the state constitutional 
prohibition against imprisonment for debt.  (Id. at p. 809.)  Our 
observation about the importance of wages in the context of this 
constitutional inquiry is not fairly read to mean that unpaid 
wages are, in general, sums already belonging to the employee, 
as opposed to a debt for the employee’s service. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
15 
as compensation for performing a service.  (See dis. opn., post, 
at pp. 1–2.)  But the employee’s claim to earned wages differs 
from these other claims in the ways that matter for purposes of 
the law of conversion.  The employee’s claim is not that the 
employer has wrongfully exercised dominion over a specifically 
identifiable pot of money that already belongs to the employee—
in other words, the sort of wrong that conversion is designed to 
remedy.  Rather, the employee’s claim is that the employer 
failed to reach into its own funds to satisfy its debt.  Indeed, in 
some cases of wage nonpayment, the monies out of which 
employees would be paid may never have existed in the first 
place.  Take, for example, a failed start-up that generates no 
income and thus finds itself unable to pay its employees.  
Because the business accounts are empty, there would not be 
any identifiable monies for the employer to convert.  No one 
would dispute that the start-up is indebted to its employees.  But 
only in the realm of fiction could a court conclude that the 
business, by failing to earn the money needed to pay wages, has 
somehow converted that nonexistent money to its own use.  
 
Here, Voris claims a right to money that did once exist, but 
which he believes was squandered.  At least in such cases, Voris 
argues, the nonpayment of wages should be treated as a 
conversion of property, not as a failure to satisfy a “ ‘mere 
contractual right of payment.’ ”  (Sanowicz, supra, 234 
Cal.App.4th at p. 1041.)  But to accept this argument would 
require us to indulge a similar fiction:  namely, that once Voris 
provided the promised services, certain identifiable monies in 
his employers’ accounts became Voris’s personal property, and 
by failing to turn them over at the agreed-upon time, his 
employers converted Voris’s property to their own use. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
16 
 
Voris contends that there is precedent for this view.  He 
points in particular to Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration 
Products Co. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 163 (Cortez), where we said that 
“earned wages that are due and payable pursuant to section 200 
et seq. of the Labor Code are . . . the property of the employee 
who has given his or her labor to the employer in exchange for 
that property.”  (Id. at p. 178.)  But Cortez is less helpful to 
Voris’s case than he suggests; the language he cites concerned 
the availability of a restitutionary remedy under the Unfair 
Competition Law (UCL), which provides equitable relief for 
unfair business practices (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.), 
and our holding was expressly limited to that context (Cortez, at 
p. 178).  We explained that “unlawfully withheld wages are 
property of the employee within the contemplation of the UCL,” 
not within the contemplation of the law in general.  (Ibid., italics 
added.)  Our reasoning, too, was rooted in considerations specific 
to equitable remedies under the UCL.  We reasoned that “equity 
regards that which ought to have been done as done [citation], 
and thus recognizes equitable conversion [citation],” and that 
“restitutionary awards encompass quantifiable sums one person 
owes to another.”  (Ibid.; see Earhart v. William Low Co. (1979) 
25 Cal.3d 503, 511, fn. 5 [“while restitution ordinarily connotes 
the return of something which one party has ‘received’ from 
another, the term may also refer to a broader obligation to 
pay”].) 
 
The reasoning of Cortez does not translate readily to this 
context:  While UCL awards may “encompass quantifiable sums 
one person owes to another” (Cortez, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 178), 
conversion claims do not.  To extend the reasoning of Cortez to 
the tort context would collapse the well-established distinction 
between a contractual obligation to pay and the tortious 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
17 
conversion of monetary interests.  Cortez certainly does not 
contemplate such a result.  Nothing in Cortez compels the 
conclusion that unpaid wages constitute property to which an 
employee holds an immediate right of possession for purposes of 
tort law.9 
                                        
9  
Nor do the appellate decisions cited in Cortez.  Our opinion 
quoted language from a Court of Appeal decision stating that 
“ ‘[e]arned but unpaid salary or wages are vested property 
rights.’ ”  (Cortez, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 178, quoting Loehr v. 
Ventura County Community College Dist. (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 
1071, 1080.)  But much like Cortez, Loehr did not purport to 
determine the “property” status of unpaid wages in general.  The 
actual issue in Loehr was whether a public employee’s claim for 
unpaid wages was subject to the claim-filing requirements of the 
Tort Claims Act, Government Code section 900 et seq.  That act 
distinguishes between claims for “money or damages,” which are 
subject to general claim-filing requirements (Gov. Code, § 905), 
and claims for “fees, salaries, wages, mileage, or other expenses 
and allowances,” which are exempted (id., § 905, subd. (c)).  
Loehr explained that claims for compensation for work already 
performed qualify as claims for “salaries [or] wages,” whereas 
claims for unearned compensation fall under the category of 
claims for “monetary damages.”  (Loehr, at p. 1080; cf. 
Longshore v. County of Ventura (1979) 25 Cal.3d 14, 22 [“A claim 
for compensation owed by an employer for services already 
performed is contractual, and thus is exempt [from certain 
provisions of the Tort Claims Act.]”].)  Loehr’s passing reference 
to property rights was largely unexplained, but appears 
designed simply to reflect the distinction, for purposes of the 
Tort Claims Act, between claims for earned (or, in the court’s 
terminology, “vested” [Loehr, at p. 1080]) compensation and 
claims for ordinary damages.  That distinction has no bearing 
on this case.  
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
18 
 
Voris also relies on Lu v. Hawaiian Gardens Casino, Inc. 
(2010) 50 Cal.4th 592, in which we held that Labor Code section 
351 does not provide a private right of action for an employee to 
recover gratuities withheld by an employer, but ventured that a 
common law claim such as conversion might lie “under 
appropriate circumstances” for an employer’s misappropriation 
of gratuities left for employees.  (Lu, at p. 604; see id. at p. 603.)  
But Lu did not purport to decide that question, and the answer 
would not control here in any event, for an employer’s 
misappropriation of gratuities is not the same as an employer’s 
withholding of promised wages.  When a patron leaves a 
gratuity for an employee (or employees), it arguably qualifies as 
a specific sum of money, belonging to the employee, that is 
capable of identification and separate from the employer’s own 
funds; indeed, the employee (or employees) for whom it was left 
has ownership of the gratuity by statute.  (Lab. Code, § 351 
[gratuity is “sole property of the employee or employees to whom 
                                        
 
The same is true of a more recent appellate decision 
quoting Loehr for the proposition that wages are “ ‘vested 
property rights.’ ”  (Reyes v. Van Elk, Ltd. (2007) 148 
Cal.App.4th 604, 612.)  Like Loehr, Reyes fails to explain the 
basis for this proposition; and as in Loehr, the reference to 
property rights was made in passing with limited relevance to 
the issue presented.  (Reyes, at p. 612 [concluding that the 
prevailing-wage statute applies equally to citizens and 
noncitizens].)  
 
Perhaps it is true, as the dissent suggests, that the 
conversion inquiry does not require an “extensive discourse” on 
unpaid wages’ “nature as ‘property.’ ”  (Dis. opn., post, at p. 5).  
But the law certainly does require proof of the “ ‘plaintiff’s 
ownership or right to possession of’ ” the money at issue.  (Ibid.)  
Neither Loehr nor Reyes purports to explain why, or how, that 
element would be satisfied in the context of a claim for unpaid 
wages.  
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
19 
it was paid, given, or left for”].)  Unpaid wages are different in 
each of these respects.  
 
Finally, Voris directs our attention to the Court of Appeal’s 
decision in Department of Industrial Relations v. UI Video 
Stores, Inc. (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 1084 (UI Video Stores).  
There, in a brief two-paragraph discussion, the court approved 
a conversion action brought by the Division of Labor Standards 
Enforcement (DLSE) of the Department of Industrial Relations.  
DLSE had sued Blockbuster on behalf of Blockbuster employees 
to recover money that was unlawfully deducted from their 
paychecks to pay for uniforms, in violation of the applicable 
wage order.  The parties settled, and as part of the settlement 
agreement Blockbuster mailed individual checks to the 
employees in the amount of the wrongful deductions.  But a 
number of checks were returned as undelivered, and DLSE 
ordered Blockbuster to deposit those checks in California’s 
unpaid wage fund.  When Blockbuster refused, DLSE filed a 
second complaint, alleging that Blockbuster’s refusal amounted 
to an unlawful conversion of the checks to its own use.  The 
Court of Appeal reversed a grant of summary judgment in the 
defendant’s favor, apparently accepting DLSE’s argument that 
it had the right to immediate possession of the checks, in its 
capacity as an agent of the state and trustee for the employees.  
(Id. at pp. 1094–1096.)   
 
Although UI Video Stores involved a conversion action 
related to wrongfully withheld wages, it did not concern a 
conversion claim for the nonpayment of wages.  The act of 
conversion that the court recognized in UI Video Stores was the 
defendant’s misappropriation of certain checks that it had cut 
and mailed to employees as part of the settlement agreement—
checks that at least arguably became the property of the 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
20 
employees at that time.  The defendant’s failure to pay wages in 
the first instance was not remedied through a conversion claim, 
but rather through DLSE’s enforcement action under the Labor 
Code.  Whether the employees could have sustained a 
conversion action for the unpaid uniform reimbursements 
themselves is a matter that was not at issue in UI Video Stores, 
and which the court did not address.10 
 
For reasons already explained, the nature of the 
underlying wage claim in UI Video Stores, like the nature of the 
wage claim in this case, is not one that fits easily with 
traditional understandings of the conversion tort.  Unlike the 
cases involving failure to turn over commissions, for example, 
which were earmarked for a specific person before being 
misappropriated and absorbed into another’s coffers, a claim for 
unpaid wages simply seeks the satisfaction of a monetary claim 
against the employer, without regard to the provenance of the 
monies at issue.  In this way, a claim for unpaid wages 
resembles other actions for a particular amount of money owed 
                                        
10  
The dissent reads UI Video Stores differently, evidently 
distracted by the Court of Appeal’s reasoning as to DLSE’s 
authority “ ‘to collect and deposit unpaid benefits.’ ”  (Dis. opn., 
post, at p. 6.)  The dissent reads too much into this language.  
The Court of Appeal addressed DLSE’s authority to collect 
unpaid benefits as a threshold procedural matter; if DLSE did 
not have legal authority to negotiate the employees’ checks for 
unreimbursed wages, it would have had no authority to bring a 
conversion claim for the unpaid checks.  The Court of Appeal did 
not purport to hold, as the dissent suggests, that “DLSE could 
have brought a conversion action for unpaid wages” in the first 
instance.  (Ibid.)  DLSE’s operative complaint raised no such 
question, and the court did not decide it.  
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
21 
in exchange for contractual performance—a type of claim that 
has long been understood to sound in contract, rather than as 
the tort of conversion.11 
IV. 
 
Voris argues that we should expand the scope of 
conversion to serve California’s “public policy in favor of full and 
prompt payment of an employee’s earned wages.”  (Smith v. 
Superior Court (2006) 39 Cal.4th 77, 82.)  We today reaffirm the 
                                        
11  
We do not suggest that any and all claims related to wages 
necessarily fall outside the bounds of the law of conversion, 
merely because they relate to wages.  The label of monies as 
“wages” or “commissions” or “fees”—or any other form of 
compensation for that matter—is not determinative, provided 
that the claim otherwise satisfies the elements of the conversion 
tort.   (Cf. dis. opn., post, at pp. 1–2.)  Take, for instance, an 
employer that pays wages but then removes the money from an 
employee’s account, or that diverts withheld amounts from their 
intended purposes; that employer may well have committed 
conversion.  (Cf. U.S. v. Whiting (7th Cir. 2006) 471 F.3d 792 
[employer committed criminal conversion under federal statute 
by holding money deducted from employees’ paychecks in the 
company’s general operating account instead of delivering it to 
the employees’ 401(k) plans or paying the employees’ health 
insurance premiums; once employees had been paid, the 
deductions belonged to the employees and no longer belonged to 
the employer].)  But absent a similar scenario, the ordinary 
failure to pay wages does not give rise to conversion.  Although 
the dissent finds “no basis” for this distinction (dis. opn., post, at 
p. 7, fn. 2), its quarrel is with the settled understanding of the 
difference between asserting dominion over another person’s 
property and failing to pay that person the money he or she is 
owed.  Both are a species of legal wrong, but it does not follow 
that both constitute the tort of conversion. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
22 
vital importance of this policy.  But we are not persuaded that 
expanding the conversion tort is the right way to vindicate it. 
 
As we have noted, with or without a conversion claim, 
there already exist extensive remedies for the nonpayment of 
wages.  An employee seeking recovery of a contractual right to 
payment of wages is, of course, entitled to sue for breach of 
contract or, absent a written agreement, for quantum meruit.  
But that is far from all.  The Legislature has repeatedly acted to 
supplement these common law remedies with statutory 
remedies.  As a result, today the primary bulwark against 
nonpayment of earned wages is the Labor Code, which contains 
a complex scheme for timely compensation of workers, 
deterrence of abusive employer practices, and enforcement of 
wage judgments. 
 
As particularly relevant here, the Labor Code secures an 
employee’s right to the full and prompt payment of final wages, 
whether the employee is terminated (as Voris was) or 
voluntarily quits.  (Lab. Code, §§ 201 [wages earned and unpaid 
are due immediately upon discharge], 202 [wages are due and 
payable within 72 hours after employee quits absent previous 
notice], 2926 [dismissed employee is “entitled to compensation 
for services rendered up to the time of such dismissal”], 2927 
[same for employee who quits].)  Employers that willfully fail to 
comply with sections 201 or 202 are subject to penalties.  (Id., 
§ 203 [statutory waiting time penalties mandate continued 
payment of employee’s daily wage for up to 30 days]; see Pineda 
v. Bank of America, N.A. (2010) 50 Cal.4th 1389, 1400.) 
 
The Labor Code also imposes special sanctions on 
individual directors, officers, or managing agents who are 
responsible for wage nonpayment.  Perhaps most significantly, 
the code makes willful failure to pay wages or false denial of a 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
23 
valid wage claim a criminal offense punishable as a 
misdemeanor.  (Lab. Code, § 216; see Trombley, supra, 31 Cal.2d 
at p. 801.)  In addition, the Legislature has imposed civil 
penalties payable to the state by “every person who unlawfully 
withholds wages due any employee in violation of” certain code 
sections (Lab. Code, § 225.5); these penalties are higher for 
“willful or intentional” violations and, after an initial violation, 
include 25 percent of the amount unlawfully withheld (Lab. 
Code, § 225.5, subd. (b)).12  (These were some of the relevant 
code provisions in effect at the time Voris’s claims accrued; as 
discussed below, the Legislature has since enacted additional 
remedies against individual directors and officers.) 
 
At least as applied to employers (as opposed to individual 
officers or directors), a conversion claim for unpaid wages would 
                                        
12  
Employees can seek relief under these provisions through 
multiple procedural avenues.  They can file a wage claim with 
the Labor Commissioner, who may then pursue the claim on 
behalf of the employee, or they can file a civil suit (as Voris has 
done here), and, if successful, recover attorney fees, costs, and 
prejudgment interest.  (Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, 
Inc. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 1094, 1115 [outlining these procedural 
options]; see Lab. Code, §§ 98–98.8 [preserving parties’ rights to 
seek de novo review in court of Commissioner’s decision]; id., 
§ 218 [preserving wage claimant’s right to sue directly for 
nonpayment of certain wages and penalties]; id., § 218.5, subd. 
(a) [authorizing attorney fees and costs]; id., § 218.6 
[authorizing prejudgment interest].)    
 
In addition to these Labor Code remedies, as we have 
already mentioned, recovery of unpaid wages is authorized 
under the UCL, at Business and Professions Code section 17200 
et seq.  (Cortez, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 178; see id. at p. 179 
[“UCL remedies are cumulative to remedies available under 
other laws”].)  
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
24 
largely duplicate these remedies and, to that extent, would serve 
little purpose.  But Voris argues that a tort remedy has certain 
advantages the present remedial scheme lacks.  For one, it 
would enhance deterrence of intentional wage nonpayment by 
authorizing the recovery of consequential, emotional distress, 
and, most importantly, punitive damages; this enhanced 
recovery, in turn, would incentivize attorneys to take cases on 
behalf of wage claimants who otherwise might not have private 
representation.  Perhaps more to the point, Voris argues, a 
conversion claim would allow him to reach Lampert directly; 
because Lampert allegedly participated in the companies’ 
deliberate withholding of wages and strategic insolvency, Voris 
maintains that Lampert can be held personally liable for 
damages in tort.  (See Frances T., supra, 42 Cal.3d at p. 504.)  
Voris asserts that the threat of personal liability would deter 
similar misconduct by corporate officers who participate in their 
employers’ bad-faith avoidance of wage obligations and 
judgments.   
 
We do not doubt that the threat of liability for 
consequential, punitive, and emotional distress damages could 
enhance the deterrence of intentional wage nonpayment.  
Although existing law already prescribes serious consequences 
for willful nonpayment—including both civil penalties and 
criminal sanctions—we agree that additional forms of tort 
damages could well play some role in preventing intentional 
misconduct, especially when combined with the strict liability 
standard and three-year statute of limitations that apply to 
conversion actions.  (Moore, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 144, fn. 38 
[strict liability standard]; AmerUS Life Ins. Co. v. Bank of 
America, N.A. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 631, 639 [statute of 
limitations].)   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
25 
 
But a conversion claim is an awfully blunt tool for 
deterring intentional misconduct of this variety.  As noted, 
conversion is a strict liability tort.  It does not require bad faith, 
knowledge, or even negligence; it requires only that the 
defendant have intentionally done the act depriving the plaintiff 
of his or her rightful possession.  (Moore, supra, 51 Cal.3d at 
p. 144, fn. 38; Poggi, supra, 167 Cal. at p. 375.)  For that reason, 
conversion liability for unpaid wages would not only reach those 
who act in bad faith, but also those who make good-faith 
mistakes—for example, an employer who fails to pay the correct 
amount in wages because of a glitch in the payroll system or a 
clerical error.  We see no sufficient justification for layering tort 
liability on top of the extensive existing remedies demanding 
that this sort of error promptly be fixed. 
 
Voris argues that “well-settled principles of tort law” 
would appropriately cabin a newly recognized conversion claim.  
But he offers no principle that would limit conversion liability 
to only those bad actors he has in mind.  He points to the “case 
by case consideration” of factors that inform this court’s 
recognition of tort duties, such as the foreseeability of harm and 
the nexus between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s 
injury.  (J’Aire Corp. v. Gregory (1979) 24 Cal.3d 799, 808.)  But 
he fails to explain how these factors would impose any 
meaningful limits in the context of a claim for wage 
nonpayment, which invariably and directly injures employees.  
(See Trombley, supra, 31 Cal.2d at pp. 809–810.)   
 
Voris also attempts to soften the blow of expanding 
conversion liability by emphasizing the procedural hurdles that 
constrain punitive damage awards.  He notes that while 
punitive damages would generally be available in a conversion 
suit, they would not be available in cases of good-faith mistake 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
26 
and the like, because punitive damages may be imposed only on 
“clear and convincing evidence that the defendant has been 
guilty of oppression, fraud, or malice.”  (Civ. Code, § 3294, subd. 
(a).)  But it is not unusual for juries to find malice supporting 
punitive damage awards in run-of-the-mill wage suits.  (E.g., 
Brewer v. Premier Golf Properties, LP (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 
1243, 1250 [jury awarded server $195,000 in punitive damages 
for employer’s Labor Code violations].)  The possibility of such 
awards would almost certainly incentivize wage claimants to 
allege “oppression, fraud, or malice” in such cases.  And even if 
less culpable defendants would not be held liable for punitive 
damages, they could still be held to pay for the value of the 
converted property and interest, plus the value of the plaintiff’s 
time and money expended in pursuit of the unpaid wages.  (Civ. 
Code, § 3336.)  In the end, given the nature of the conversion 
tort, “it would be difficult if not impossible to formulate a rule 
that would assure that only ‘deserving’ cases give rise to tort 
relief.”  (Foley, supra, 47 Cal.3d at p. 697.) 
 
Voris’s more fundamental aim in this case is, of course, to 
reach individual officers who are responsible for their 
companies’ evasion of their established wage obligations.  But 
Voris fails to explain why his proposed conversion claim is a 
necessary or appropriate response to this problem.  For one 
thing, although many of the existing remedies for wage 
nonpayment authorize recovery from employers and not 
individual officers, that is not true of all; corporate officers and 
managing agents do face statutory liability for their willful 
misconduct pertaining to wage nonpayment.  (E.g., Lab. Code, 
§§ 216 
[misdemeanor 
liability], 
225.5 
[civil 
penalties].)  
Moreover, where there is evidence that officers or directors have 
abused the corporate form, a plaintiff may proceed on a theory 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
27 
of alter ego liability.  (Sonora Diamond Corp. v. Superior Court 
(2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 523, 538.)  Indeed, in this very case, Voris 
made alter ego allegations against Lampert.  The Court of 
Appeal noted, in its first opinion, that “Voris’s opening brief sets 
forth a lengthy list of Lampert’s alleged misdeeds,” which, if 
properly supported, might sustain allegations of alter ego 
liability; the claim failed because Voris did not follow the 
applicable rules of civil procedure in marshaling evidentiary 
support for those alter ego allegations.  Voris offers no adequate 
explanation for this default, and neither he nor the dissent 
explains why the availability of alter ego liability would not offer 
an effective response to the concerns he raises in this case.13 
 
Voris and the dissent both likewise pay insufficient 
attention to the considerable body of statutory law that is 
specifically designed to directly punish and deter employers that 
fail to satisfy wage judgments.  Under the Labor Code, if an 
employer fails to satisfy a wage judgment or is convicted of 
violating wage laws, the Labor Commissioner can require the 
employer to post a bond with the state in order to continue doing 
business in California.  (Lab. Code, § 240, subds. (a)–(c) 
[description of bonds, accountings, and judicial actions Labor 
Commissioner can bring against noncompliant employers]; 
Sonic-Calabasas A, Inc. v. Moreno (2013) 57 Cal.4th 1109, 1128–
1129.)  If the Commissioner does not take action despite repeat 
                                        
13 
Amicus Curiae Asian Americans Advancing Justice 
argues that alter ego claims are often prohibitively difficult for 
unrepresented litigants to navigate.  It is not clear, however, 
why the appropriate response to this difficulty would be to 
recognize a conversion claim based on unpaid wages—which 
could be brought against all employers—as opposed to other, 
more targeted solutions.   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
28 
violations by an employer, private individuals can seek a 
temporary restraining order to halt the employer’s business 
without waiting for the Commissioner to enjoin it first.  (Lab. 
Code, § 243.)  In addition to these measures, the Wage Theft 
Prevention Act of 2011 imposes fines and jail sentences on 
employers that evade wage judgments:  an unpaid wage 
judgment of $1,000 or less triggers a fine of up to $10,000 and a 
jail sentence up to six months, and an unpaid judgment of more 
than $1,000 triggers a fine of up to $20,000 and a jail sentence 
up to 12 months.  (Id., § 1197.2, subd. (a).)  The act also 
authorizes employees to recover attorney fees and costs incurred 
in the private enforcement of wage judgments.  (Id., § 1194.3.)14 
 
As various Labor Code provisions illustrate, the 
Legislature can craft rights and remedies that target those 
employers and individual officers who withhold wages willfully 
and repeatedly, and who strategically evade wage judgments.  
Indeed, after Voris filed this suit, the Legislature enacted 
Senate Bill No. 588 (Senate Bill 588) to address the precise 
problem Voris alleges:  “Irresponsible employers [that] may 
have hidden their cash assets, declared bankruptcy, or 
otherwise become judgment-proof” to avoid adverse wage 
                                        
14  
Besides these tools under the Labor Code, Voris has at 
his disposal multiple statutory remedies designed to facilitate 
the collection of civil judgments and to combat improper 
judgment evasion.  For instance, the Enforcement of 
Judgments Law (Code Civ. Proc., §§ 680.010–724.260) 
authorizes judgment creditors to use liens, levies, and writs of 
execution to compel payment.  And the Uniform Voidable 
Transactions Act (Civ. Code, § 3439 et seq.) permits a 
defrauded creditor to reach property that has been 
fraudulently transferred by a judgment debtor to a third party.   
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
29 
judgments.  (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Sen. Bill 
No. 588 (2015–2016 Reg. Sess.) as amended July 1, 2015, p. 4.)15  
Senate Bill 588 is designed to address the problem by enhancing 
the sanctions against employers that ignore adverse wage 
judgments.  If an employer fails to satisfy (or timely appeal) a 
final wage judgment, the employer is now required to file a bond 
with the state to satisfy the unpaid judgment or else halt all 
business in California.  (Lab. Code, § 238, subds. (a)–(c).)16  
Further, the Labor Commissioner is now equipped to employ 
stop orders (id., § 238.1, subd. (a)) and to levy property, money, 
and credits belonging to the employer but possessed by third 
parties (id., § 96.8; Code Civ. Proc., §§ 690.020–690.050).  And 
to avoid attempts at evasion by an employer that strategically 
becomes judgment-proof and then effectively continues its 
                                        
15  
The legislative history sheds light on the concerns that 
prompted passage of Senate Bill 588.  Based on studies showing 
that “the vast majority of wage theft victims received nothing, 
and those that received anything received little of what they 
were legally due” (Sen. Com. on Labor & Industrial Relations, 
Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 588 (2015–2016 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 29, 
2015, pp. 5–6), the legislative history points to a need for 
legislation to “discourage business owners from rolling up their 
operations and walking away from their debts to workers” 
(Assem. Com. on Labor & Employment, Analysis of Sen. Bill 
No. 588 (2015–2016 Reg. Sess.) as amended July 1, 2015, p. 6). 
16  
Labor 
Code 
section 
240 
already 
authorizes 
the 
Commissioner to impose a similar bond requirement, but it does 
not mandate such action.  While section 240 leaves the bond 
amount in the Commissioner’s discretion, newly enacted section 
238 imposes minimum bond amounts ranging from $50,000 to 
$150,000, depending on the unsatisfied portion of the judgment.  
(Id., §§ 238, subd. (a), 240, subd. (a).)  
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
30 
business 
under 
another 
name, 
the 
mandatory 
bond 
requirements apply equally to successor employers that are 
“similar in operation and ownership” to their predecessors.  
(Lab. Code, § 238, subd. (e).)17   
 
Senate Bill 588 also targets individual officers who are 
involved in the failure to pay wages or to satisfy final wage 
judgments.  Under newly enacted Labor Code section 558.1, 
“[a]ny employer or other person acting on behalf of an employer, 
who violates, or causes to be violated, any provision regulating 
minimum wages or hours and days of work in any order of the 
Industrial Welfare Commission, or violates, or causes to be 
violated, Sections 203, 226, 226.7, 1193.6, 1194, or 2802, may be 
held liable as the employer for such violation.”  (Lab. Code, 
§ 558.1, subd. (a), italics added.)  “ ‘[O]ther person acting on 
behalf of an employer’ is limited to a natural person who is an 
owner, director, officer, or managing agent of the employer.”  
(Id., subd. (b).)  Individual officers are also subject to civil and 
criminal penalties for failing to observe Senate Bill 588’s new 
enforcement laws.  Should an employer continue doing business 
without posting the bond required under Labor Code section 
238, any “person acting on behalf of [the] employer” is subject to 
a civil penalty of $2,500.  (Id., § 238, subd. (f).)  Finally, if an 
                                        
17  
More precisely, a successor employer “shall be deemed the 
same employer . . . if (1) the employees of the successor employer 
are engaged in substantially the same work in substantially the 
same working conditions under substantially the same 
supervisors or (2) if the new entity has substantially the same 
production process or operations, produces substantially the 
same products or offers substantially the same services, and has 
substantially the same body of customers.”  (Lab. Code, § 238, 
subd. (e).)  
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
31 
“owner, director, officer, or managing agent of the employer” 
fails to observe a stop order issued by the Commissioner, he or 
she is guilty of a misdemeanor and can face up to 60 days in jail 
and/or a fine up to $10,000.  (Id., § 238.1, subd. (b).)18 
 
These legislative solutions may not be perfect.  But the 
history of wage-payment regulation in this state, beginning 
more than a century ago and continuing through the present 
day, shows us both that the Legislature has been attentive to 
the problem and that it is capable of studying the range of 
possible solutions and fashioning appropriately tailored relief. 
 
By contrast, the conversion claim Voris asks us to 
recognize neither fits well with the traditional understanding of 
the tort, nor is well suited to address the particular problem he 
alleges.  A conversion claim for unpaid wages would reach well 
beyond those individual corporate officers who withhold wages 
to punish disfavored employees or who deliberately run down 
corporate coffers to evade wage judgments.  As the Court of 
Appeal in this case observed, to recognize such a claim would 
authorize plaintiffs to append conversion claims to every 
garden-variety 
suit 
involving 
wage 
nonpayment 
or 
underpayment.  The effect would be to transform a category of 
contract claims into torts, and to pile additional measures of tort 
damages on top of statutory recovery, even in cases of good-faith 
mistake.  In light of the extensive remedies that already exist to 
combat wage nonpayment in California, we decline to take that 
step. 
                                        
18  
Senate Bill 588 was not in effect at the time Voris filed 
suit, and the parties agree that it does not apply retroactively.  
But Voris offers no reason to think its enforcement-related 
provisions do not apply to his existing wage judgments.   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J. 
 
32 
V. 
 
We agree with Voris on this critical point:  The full and 
prompt payment of wages is of fundamental importance to the 
welfare of both workers and the State of California.  The 
Legislature has so recognized by crafting extensive remedies to 
ensure that employees are paid in full, and in penalizing 
employers that fail to live up to their obligations.  This court has 
so recognized in upholding the Legislature’s authority to adopt 
new solutions to combat the problem.  (E.g., Trombley, supra, 31 
Cal.2d at p. 801; Ballestra, supra, 173 Cal. at p. 658; see also 
Indian Spring, supra, 37 Cal.App. at pp. 380–381.)  We express 
no views here on whether additional, appropriately tailored 
remedies are called for.  We hold only that a conversion claim is 
not an appropriate remedy.  For that reason, we decline to 
supplement the existing set of remedies for wage nonpayment 
with an additional tort remedy in the nature of conversion.   
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KRUGER, J. 
 
We Concur: 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. 
CHIN, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
 
 
 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
S241812 
 
Dissenting Opinion by Justice Cuéllar 
 
In exchange for promised compensation in the form of 
wages and stock, plaintiff Brett Voris worked with defendant 
Greg Lampert in a series of start-up ventures.  After Voris 
discovered what he believed to be financial misconduct in the 
management of these entities, he was fired.  He successfully 
sued the three ventures, obtaining awards that totaled nearly 
$350,000.  But because Lampert allegedly ran down the 
companies’ accounts and mismanaged the startups into 
insolvency, Voris has been unable to collect on these judgments.  
In this proceeding he seeks to recover against Lampert, who (he 
claims) either directed or participated in the start-ups’ failure to 
pay him the compensation he had earned.  He relies on common 
law conversion — a tort that is often used to recover 
compensation that has been earned yet has not been paid. 
The majority opinion acknowledges but then sidesteps this 
crucial feature of California tort law:  that numerous plaintiffs 
have successfully sought compensation for their labor through 
the tort of conversion.  (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 14-16.)  Under 
settled case law, Voris could properly invoke conversion to 
recover money due if Lampert, his partner in a joint venture, 
had exercised dominion and control over, say, his share of real 
estate commissions.  (See Sanowicz v. Bacal (2015) 234 
Cal.App.4th 1027, 1042.)  He could use conversion if Lampert, 
as his agent, had failed to pay Voris the proceeds from the sale 
of consigned goods.  (See Fischer v. Machado (1996) 50 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
2 
Cal.App.4th 1069, 1073-1074.)  The majority likewise concedes 
that a worker may assert conversion to recover money owed for 
the worker’s efforts if the worker happens to be an attorney 
seeking to recover fees from a client’s award.  (See Weiss v. 
Marcus (1975) 51 Cal.App.3d 590, 599.)  Indeed, Voris 
successfully invoked conversion in this case to recover the 
component of his compensation that consists of stock.  (See maj. 
opn., ante, at pp. 4-5.)  Only when wages — the common way by 
which workers make their way in the world — are sought does 
the majority suddenly decide that the tort of conversion 
somehow peters out, because it’s just “not the right fit.”  (Id. at 
p. 1.)  
That’s a conclusion I cannot embrace.  Unlike the 
majority, I wouldn’t close the courthouse door when a worker 
invokes the conversion tort to recover earned but unpaid wages.  
In California, unpaid wages are the employee’s property once 
they are earned and payable.  (See Cortez v. Purolator Air 
Filtration Products Co. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 163, 178 (Cortez); 
Reyes v. Van Elk, Ltd. (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 604, 612 (Reyes); 
Department of Industrial Relations v. UI Video Stores, Inc. 
(1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 1084, 1096 (UI Video Stores); Loehr v. 
Ventura County Community College Dist. (1983) 147 Cal.App.3d 
1071, 1080 (Loehr).)  Which is why an action for unpaid wages 
is not, as the majority suggests, merely an “action[] for a 
particular amount of money owed in exchange for contractual 
performance.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 22.)  The doctrinal basis for 
invoking conversion here is as solid as California’s longstanding 
concern about wage theft.  Indeed, nothing in the legislative 
scheme or public policy more generally justifies limiting the tort 
in the manner the majority proposes.  So with respect, I dissent. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
3 
I. 
What seems to most trouble the majority about allowing 
Voris to recover his unpaid wages by asserting conversion is the 
risk of blurring the common law distinction between contract 
and tort.  In the majority’s view, allowing workers to assert the 
conversion tort to recover wages they are due “would collapse 
the 
well-established 
distinction 
between 
a 
contractual 
obligation to pay and the tortious conversion of monetary 
interests.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 18.)  The fear is unfounded.  In 
California, unpaid wages are not merely contractual obligations 
to pay a sum.  This is because, as we long ago observed, “wages 
are not ordinary debts.”  (In re Trombley (1948) 31 Cal.2d 801, 
809, italics added.)  The reason for this is  practical:  “because of 
the economic position of the average worker and, in particular, 
his dependence on wages for the necessities of life for himself 
and his family, it is essential to the public welfare that he 
receive his pay when it is due.”  (Ibid.; see also maj. opn., ante, 
at pp. 7-8, 23.)   
A recent study estimated that minimum wage violations 
alone cost California workers nearly $2 billion per year.  (Cooper 
& Kroeger, Employers Steal Billions From Workers’ Paychecks 
Each Year (May 10, 2017) Economic Policy Inst., p. 10, Table 1 
 [as of Aug. 13, 
2019].)1  When workers cannot collect wages they are owed, they 
are unable to pay for food, housing, or other bills.  They spend 
less overall, slowing local economies and decreasing tax revenue 
for state and local governments.  And employers who fail to pay 
wages in full and on time create an uneven playing field in which 
                                        
1  
All Internet citations in this opinion are archived by 
year, docket number, and case name at 
. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
4 
law-abiding businesses are unable to compete.  What happened 
to Voris, in effect, leads to a badly distorted and fundamentally 
unfair marketplace for both labor and consumers.  Even if 
Voris’s plight does not precisely resemble the kind of wage theft 
too often afflicting lower-income workers, Voris has not been 
paid what the courts have determined he is owed — and no one 
disputes this. 
Where unpaid wages diverge from garden-variety 
contractual promises to pay a debt is in the fundamental 
importance of earned wages to workers, their families, and the 
public.  Our case law has repeatedly highlighted and enforced 
that distinction.  In Cortez, supra, 23 Cal.4th 163, for example, 
we declared that “[o]nce earned, those unpaid wages became 
property to which the employees were entitled.”  (Id. at p. 168.)  
Indeed, they are “as much the property of the employee who has 
given his or her labor to the employer in exchange for that 
property as is property a person surrenders through an unfair 
business practice” (id. at p. 178) — the latter being the type of 
property that could surely form the basis of a conversion action.  
It is the exchange of labor for money — and the pivotal role of 
worker wages — that cause unpaid wages to become the 
worker’s property even when those funds are still in the 
employer’s possession.  (See Pineda v. Bank of America, N.A. 
(2010) 50 Cal.4th 1389, 1402 (Pineda); Reyes, supra, 148 
Cal.App.4th at p. 612 [unpaid wages are “ ‘vested property 
rights’ ” within the meaning of the state Constitution]; Loehr, 
supra, 147 Cal.App.3d at p. 1080 [“Earned but unpaid salary or 
wages are vested property rights . . . .”].)  That the unpaid wages 
may be commingled with the employer’s general funds does not 
disqualify them as property that may be converted, so long as 
the sum owed is specific and definite.  (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
5 
13; Fischer v. Machado, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1072-
1073.)   
The majority goes to great lengths to marginalize 
California case law establishing that earned but unpaid wages 
are, indeed, the worker’s property.  In their view, Cortez’s 
characterization of wages as property should be strictly limited 
to the context of the Unfair Competition Law.  (Maj. opn., ante, 
at pp. 17-18.)  But in no way are the significance of worker pay 
and the urgent need that it be paid in a timely manner logically 
limited to the four corners of that statutory scheme.  Even less 
convincing is the majority’s puzzling criticism of the 
characterization in Reyes and Loehr as “largely unexplained.”  
(Maj. opn., ante, at p. 19, fn. 9.)  To establish the first element of 
the conversion tort, it’s enough to show “plaintiff’s ownership or 
right to possession of personal property.”  (5 Witkin, Summary 
of Cal. Law (11th ed. 2017) Torts, § 810, p. 1115.)  No extensive 
discourse on its nature as “property” is required.  (See ibid.; cf. 
Welco Electronic, Inv. v. Mora (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 202, 215, 
fn. omitted [“Although the parties have not cited any authority 
that expressly covers the facts here, our application of the tort 
of conversion in this case is consistent with existing legal 
principles”].)   
In any event, one can find such an analysis in UI Video 
Stores, supra, 55 Cal.App.4th 1084 — a decision that Lampert 
urges us to overrule but that the majority evidently reads 
“differently.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 21, fn. 10.)  There, the Court 
of Appeal sustained a conversion action brought by the 
Department of Industrial Relations against Blockbuster Video 
for Blockbuster’s failure to comply with the terms of a 
settlement agreement requiring it to deposit into the state’s 
unpaid wage fund sums that had been wrongfully withheld from 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
6 
employees who could not be located.  One part of the court’s 
analysis upholding the conversion cause of action focused, as the 
majority does, on the role of the Division of Labor Standards 
Enforcement (DLSE) as a trustee of these sums under the 
settlement agreement.  (UI Video Stores, at p. 1096.)  But the 
court went on to uphold the conversion action on a second basis 
–– one independent of the settlement agreement.  In that 
passage, the court explained that “the DLSE need not possess 
legal title to the property at issue to support a cause of action 
for conversion.  A person without legal title to property may 
recover from a converter if the plaintiff is responsible to the true 
owner, such as in the case of a bailee or pledgee of the property.”  
(Ibid.)  The DLSE had precisely such an interest, the court 
concluded, because it was empowered “to collect and deposit 
unpaid benefits.”  (Ibid.; see Lab. Code, § 96.7, subd. (a) [“The 
Labor Commissioner shall act as trustee of all such collected 
unpaid wages or benefits, and shall deposit such collected 
moneys in the Industrial Relations Unpaid Wage Fund”].)  In 
other words, the DLSE could have brought a conversion action 
for unpaid wages because it was empowered to collect such sums 
on behalf of the affected employees.  (See Sims v. AT&T Mobility 
Services LLC (E.D.Cal. 2013) 955 F.Supp.2d 1110, 1120 (Sims) 
[“The Blockbuster decision alone is sufficient authority to find 
that a cause of action for conversion of unpaid wages is viable”].)   
I have difficulty understanding why a state agency may 
sue for conversion of unpaid wages on behalf of the workers who 
earned those wages, but (in the majority’s view) those workers 
are barred from asserting that conversion cause of action 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
7 
directly.  So far as I can see, nothing in the doctrine requires this 
anomalous result.2   
The majority finds it “notable” that no precedential 
California decision has yet recognized a conversion claim based 
on withholding of wages.  (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 10.)  More 
conspicuous, to my mind, is the absence of any precedential 
decision refusing to recognize a conversion claim in these 
circumstances.  For some time, plaintiffs in wage cases have 
routinely included a claim for conversion.  (See, e.g., Gentry v. 
Superior Court (2007) 42 Cal.4th 443, 455, fn. 3 [conversion 
claim for unpaid overtime]; Falk v. Children’s Hospital Los 
                                        
2  
The majority opinion disclaims any intent to categorically 
foreclose a conversion cause of action simply because the 
property converted happens to be wages, and the majority 
suggests that such a claim might lie in unusual circumstances 
not present here.  As examples, the majority offers the 
circumstance where an employer “pays wages but then removes 
the money from an employee’s account” or “diverts withheld 
amounts from their intended purposes.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 
22, fn. 11.)  Yet nowhere does it explain why some peculiar 
sleight of hand involving employee financial accounts may 
support a conversion claim while the ordinary failure to pay 
earned wages — discrete monies our case law repeatedly 
characterizes as employee property –– does not.  I appreciate the 
majority’s implicit acknowledgement in footnote eleven that it 
would be wrong to simply conclude that conversion can never 
play any conceivable role in ameliorating wage theft.  But 
there’s no basis to suggest that conversion ordinarily lacks a role 
in addressing wage theft, or to draw distinctions based on 
whether the employer simply refuses to pay owed wages or has 
the wages momentarily show up in an account before siphoning 
them off.  Both situations, after all, involve the employer’s 
withholding of funds that are constructively possessed by the 
employee.  (See Pineda, supra, 50 Cal.4th at p. 1402 [“The vested 
interest in unpaid wages . . . arises out of the employees’ action, 
i.e., their labor”].)   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
8 
Angeles (2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 1454, 1458 [claim for 
“[c]onversion and theft of labor” for failure to timely pay wages]; 
On-Line Power, Inc. v. Mazur (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 1079, 1082 
[conversion claim for unpaid wages]; Dunlap v. Superior Court 
(2006) 142 Cal.App.4th 330, 333 [claim for “conversion and theft 
of labor”]; Stark v. CVS Pharmacy (Super.Ct. L.A., 2012, No. 
BC476431) 2012 Cal.Super. LEXIS 13832, *1-*3 [trial court 
order overruling demurrer to conversion claim for unpaid 
wages]; accord, Sims, supra, 955 F.Supp.2d at pp. 1119-1120 
[“there is clear authority under California law that employees 
have a vested property interest in the wages that they earn, 
failure to pay them is a legal wrong that interferes with the 
employee’s title in the wages, and an action for conversion can 
therefore be brought to recover unpaid wages”].)   
Despite this history, though, no party or amicus curiae has 
pointed us to evidence of any ill effects.  Nor have they identified 
any adverse effects arising from the recognition of wage 
conversion claims in other jurisdictions.  (See maj. opn., ante, at 
pp. 9-10, fn. 6.)  What we do know is that the nonconversion 
remedies in existence at the time Voris filed suit were 
inadequate.  Despite “the considerable body of statutory law 
that is specifically designed to directly punish and deter 
employers that fail to satisfy wage judgments” (maj. opn., ante, 
at p. 29), it is still “difficult and rare for workers in California to 
recover stolen wages.”  (Sen. Jud. Com., analysis of Sen. Bill No. 
588, as amended Apr. 20, 2015 (2015-2016 Reg. Sess.) p. 15.)  
According to a 2013 report by the National Employment Law 
Project and the UCLA Labor Center, only 17 percent of 
prevailing wage claimants before the DLSE between 2008 and 
2011 recovered any payment at all.  (Cho et al., Hollow Victories:  
The Crisis in Collecting Unpaid Wages for California’s Workers 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
9 
(Mar. 
2015) 
Nat. 
Employment 
Law 
Project, 
p. 
2 
 [as of Aug. 13, 2019].)  
Those who did prevail managed to recover, on average, only 15 
cents on the dollar.  (Ibid.)  Conversion actions — like the one 
here — offer the possibility of recovery in situations where the 
relevant corporate entity is insolvent, and would increase the 
financial consequences of withholding an employee’s earned 
wages or other personal property.  But there’s no reason to think 
such actions would spur litigation beyond circumstances where 
the employee’s personal property is at issue and, in any event, 
all civil litigation is subject to a variety of judicial constraints.   
To say in light of these characteristics that conversion 
simply is not “the right fit for the wrong” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 
1), nor “an appropriate remedy” (id. at p. 35), is to assume a 
conclusion about rights, wrongs, and remedies as puzzling as it 
is difficult to justify.  For the workers who aren’t being paid what 
they earned, it hardly matters whether the nonpayment or 
underpayment was the product of deliberation or mistake –– the 
financial hit to the worker’s income is a heavy burden either 
way.  And to make whole a worker who is forced to sue to recover 
unpaid wages, there must be an award of interest and attorney 
fees.  (See Civ. Code, § 3336.)  The majority seems worried that 
employers who wrongfully withhold wages could be “held to pay 
for the value of the converted property and interest, plus the 
value of the plaintiff’s time and money expended in pursuit of 
the unpaid wages.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 28.)  Yet the possibility 
of an award that compensates an employee for everything the 
employee has lost as a result of the defendant’s failure to pay in 
full and on time is precisely the point of allowing such an action 
to proceed:  a feature, not a bug.   
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
10 
True:  A conversion cause of action does raise the prospect 
of punitive damages.  But only in cases where the plaintiff can 
establish malice, fraud, or oppression by clear and convincing 
evidence.  (See Civ. Code, § 3294, subd. (a).)  And it is not enough 
merely to “allege” malice, fraud, or oppression.  (Maj. opn., ante, 
at p. 28.)  Our pleading rules require a plaintiff to allege the 
requisite elements of a punitive damages claim in more than 
“conclusionary terms.”  (Cyrus v. Haveson (1976) 65 Cal.App.3d 
306, 317; see also Grieves v. Superior Court (1984) 157 
Cal.App.3d 159, 166 [“Not only must there be circumstances of 
oppression, fraud or malice, but facts must be alleged in the 
pleading to support such a claim”].)  In any event, the majority 
does not explain why punitive damages should be available 
when an employer acts with malice, fraud, or oppression in 
withholding compensation in the form of, say, stock or 
commissions but must be barred when the same employer 
converts employees’ unpaid wages to its own use.  (Cf. Tameny 
v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980) 27 Cal.3d 167, 176, fn. 10 
[“[employer] cites no instance in which tort liability has been 
denied in an entire class of cases on the ground that punitive 
damages would be available in aggravated circumstances”].)   
Indeed, such a distinction — which is fundamental to the 
majority’s conclusion — seems entirely illusory.  As we have 
recognized, stock issued to an employee as compensation “also 
constitute[s] a wage.”  (Schachter v. Citigroup, Inc. (2009) 47 
Cal.4th 610, 619.)  So do commissions.  (Ramirez v. Yosemite 
Water Co. (1999) 20 Cal.4th 785, 804 [commissions can 
constitute “ ‘ “wages” ’ ”].)  Yet under the majority’s ruling, Voris 
ends up being able to assert conversion of one part of his wages 
(stock), but not the remainder of his wage compensation.  (See 
Fremont Indemnity Co. v. Fremont General Corp. (2007) 148 
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
11 
Cal.App.4th 97, 125 [“We see no sound basis in reason to allow 
recovery in tort for one but not the other”].)  For the vast 
majority of California workers, who are not offered stock 
incentives, today’s decision risks relegating them to second-class 
status.  
What’s particularly odd about the majority’s reasoning is 
its unwillingness to see conversion for what it is:  an action that 
applies to “every species of personal property.”  (Payne v. Elliot 
(1880) 54 Cal. 339, 341.)  Nor, when confronted with particular 
types of property that are closely analogous to those in prior 
conversion cases, do courts ask, at every turn, whether a 
purportedly limited tort should be expanded.  Provided that the 
analogy is sufficiently close — which I believe is true here — the 
question properly becomes whether something in the legislative 
scheme (or in the common law itself) justifies a restriction on the 
tort’s scope.  No such justification appears.   
It’s certainly true that the Legislature has been active in 
this area.  But ordinarily legislative action is no basis for casting 
aside otherwise applicable common law remedies –– and here, 
the Legislature has also acted with a measure of humility, 
especially relative to the scope of the problem.  The 2015 
statutory changes underscore the continuing importance the 
Legislature assigns to the recovery of unpaid wages.  Experience 
shows, though, that the problem is unlikely to disappear 
entirely even under the most optimistic scenarios and even 
assuming aggressive enforcement and implementation of 
Senate Bill No. 588 (2015-2016 Reg. Sess.).  (See, e.g., Gollan, 
California Regulators Aren’t Taking Action Against Care Homes 
That Ignore Wage Theft Judgments (May 20, 2019) The Center 
for 
Investigative 
Reporting 
  [as of Aug. 13, 2019].)  The 
most reasonable inference is that these legislative remedies 
were “ ‘meant to supplement, not supplant . . . , existing . . . 
remedies, in order to give employees the maximum opportunity 
to vindicate their . . . rights.”  (Rojo v. Kliger (1990) 52 Cal.3d 
65, 74-75.)  
In this case, Voris claims he can allege that Lampert, as 
controlling officer or director of these ventures, was entrusted 
with Voris’s wages.  Lampert is also one of the persons who could 
have been sued individually for unpaid wages, had Senate Bill 
No. 588 been in effect at the time.  Recognizing the availability 
of a tort claim of conversion, as a complement to the legislative 
scheme, seems consistent with the tort’s broad scope under 
California law and with the manner in which state legislative 
remedies and the common law traditionally interact.  (See 
Fischer v. Machado, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1074-1075 
[recognizing a conversion cause of action despite the existence 
of state and federal statutory remedies]; see generally City of 
Moorpark v. Superior Court (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1143, 1156 
[“When courts enforce a common law remedy despite the 
existence of a statutory remedy, they are not ‘say[ing] that a 
different rule for the particular facts should have been written 
by the Legislature.’  [Citation.]  They are simply saying that the 
common law ‘rule’ coexists with the statutory ‘rule’ ”].)  This may 
also help victims of wage theft and society as a whole by better 
aligning employers’ incentives with the full extent of the 
individual and social costs associated with the conversion of 
unpaid wages.  (See generally Pound, The Spirit of the Common 
Law (1921) p. 174 [the common law “is and must be used, even 
in an age of copious legislation, to supplement, round out and 
develop the enacted element”].)  
VORIS v. LAMPERT 
Cuéllar, J., dissenting 
 
13 
II.   
 The Court of Appeal unanimously sustained Voris’s stock 
conversion claim but, in a split decision, affirmed the trial 
court’s ruling granting judgment on the pleadings on the wage 
conversion claim.  I find no principled reason to distinguish 
between these two components of Voris’s compensation.  
Because the majority holds otherwise, I dissent with respect. 
 
 
 
 
 
CUÉLLAR, J. 
I Concur: 
LIU, J. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Voris v. Lampert 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion XXX NP opn. filed 3/28/17 – 2d Dist., Div. 3 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S241812 
Date Filed: August 15, 2019 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Los Angeles 
Judge: Michael L. Stern 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Anderson Yeh, Edward M. Anderson and Regina Yeh for Plaintiff and Appellant. 
 
Jean H. Choi, Zachary Genduso and Jay Shin for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, Bet 
Tzedek, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and The Wage Justice Center as Amici Curiae on behalf 
of Plaintiff and Appellant. 
 
Paul Kujawsky; Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker and Robert Cooper for Defendant and 
Respondent. 
 
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Julie A. Totten and Katie E. Briscoe for Employers Group and California 
Employment Law Council as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Regina Yeh 
Anderson Yeh 
401 Wilshire Boulevard, 12th Floor 
Santa Monica, CA  90401 
(310) 496-4270 
 
Jay Shin 
The Wage Justice Center 
3250 Wilshire Boulevard, 13th Floor 
Los Angeles, CA  90010 
(213) 273-8400 
 
Robert Cooper 
Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker 
555 South Flower Street, Suite 2900 
Los Angeles, CA  90071 
(213) 4443-5100