Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-00676/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-00676-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Petition for Removal

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United States District Court 

Northern District of Californi

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

DEANNE ECHEVARRIA, et al.,

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

ACCENTCARE, INC., et al., 

Defendants. 

Case No. 15-cv-00676-EDL 

ORDER DISMISSING CASE 

This is a wage and hour putative class action case. The case was removed to this Court on 

February 12, 2015, and on February 17 Defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration and stay 

proceedings. Both sides consented to the jurisdiction of this magistrate court. On March 5, 2015, 

the due date for Plaintiffs’ opposition to the motion to compel arbitration, Plaintiffs filed a Notice 

of Voluntary Dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a) and a docket clerk 

closed the case. At that time, Plaintiffs also apparently filed a demand for arbitration with the 

American Arbitration Association seeking to arbitrate claims on a classwide basis. On March 9, 

2015, Defendants filed a Petition to Compel Arbitration, arguing that Plaintiffs’ claims must be 

arbitrated on an individual basis. That petition and a subsequent Motion to Dismiss are pending 

before another judge of this district as AccentCare, Inc. et al. v. Echevarria, et al., 15-cv-1078-

JSW. 

 On March 18, 2015 Defendants filed an administrative motion to clarify the status of this 

case, which Defendants believe is still open and active even though the docket clerk closed it, and 

to relate pending case 15-cv-1078 to this dismissed case. Defendants argued that the case should 

not have been dismissed without a Court order pursuant to FRCP 41(a) and the case should remain 

open and active because it could not have been closed without compliance with Federal Rule of 

Case 3:15-cv-00676-EDL Document 21 Filed 04/20/15 Page 1 of 5
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United States District Court 

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Civil Procedure 23(e). 

Rule 41(a)(1) provides in relevant part that, “[s]ubject to the provisions of Rule 23(e) . . . 

an action may be dismissed by the plaintiff without order of court (i) by filing a notice of dismissal 

at any time before service of by the adverse party of an answer or of a motion for summary 

judgment, whichever first occurs.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1). Rule 23(e) in turn provides that, 

“[t]he claims, issues, or defenses of a certified class may be settled, voluntarily dismissed, or 

compromised only with the court's approval.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e). Defendants also rely on 

Local Rule 77-2 (Orders Grantable By the Clerk), which provides in pertinent part that the clerk 

may enter orders without further direction of a Judge, including “Orders of dismissal on consent, 

with or without prejudice, except in cases to which Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, 23.1, or 66 apply.” 

On March 26, this Court issued an order noting that Rule 23(e) only facially applies to 

certified classes but questioning whether a court order was required for a voluntary dismissal in 

this pre-certification case in light of Diaz v. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 876 F.2d 1401 

(9th Cir. 1989), a case pre-dating the 2003 amendment to Rule 23(e) wherein the rule was changed 

to apply only to a “certified class” and holding that Rule 23(e) applies before certification. The 

Court noted that Diaz and post-amendment cases following it “arose in the context of settlements 

and stipulated dismissals, which may well pose a greater danger of harm to absent members of the 

putative class than under the circumstances here, where Plaintiffs dismissed the case with no 

agreement from Defendants, and continued to pursue the claims on behalf of the class through a 

demand for class arbitration. Therefore, it is even more unlikely that the Court’s approval is 

required to protect absent putative class members here.” 

Nevertheless, the Court found it “prudent” to consider whether Plaintiffs’ involuntary 

dismissal was appropriate under Rule 23(e): 

. . . the district court should inquire into possible prejudice from (1) 

class members' possible reliance on the filing of the action if they 

are likely to know of it either because of publicity or other 

circumstances; (2) lack of adequate time for class members to file 

other actions, because of a rapidly approaching statute of 

limitations; (3) any settlement or concession of class interests made 

by the class representative or counsel in order to further their own 

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United States District Court 

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interests. 

Diaz v. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 876 F.2d 1401, 1408 (9th Cir. 1989). Because the 

Court lacked sufficient information to apply these factors, it ordered further briefing from both 

sides. Having considered the parties’ supplemental briefing on the Diaz factors, the Court holds 

that dismissal of the complaint is appropriate even assuming Rule 23(e) applies. This is especially 

true where, as here, Rule 23(e)’s requirements apply, if at all, in a much lighter form that does not 

entail “the kind of substantive oversight required when reviewing a settlement binding upon the 

class.” Id. 

 Defendants first contend that the Court should void Plaintiffs’ voluntary dismissal and not 

consider whether the Court would grant Plaintiffs’ request to voluntarily dismiss the case under 

Rule 23(e) if Plaintiffs had properly presented one. However, Plaintiffs agree that arbitration is 

the proper forum for their claims, and Defendants could argue their position about the arbitrability 

of classwide versus individual claims in the arbitration forum or state court instead of before this 

court. Additionally, both sides have now had a full opportunity to brief the issue of whether 

dismissal under Rule 23(e) is appropriate, so it would be highly inefficient to require Plaintiffs to 

file a noticed motion at this point.1 

 Alternatively, Defendants argue that dismissal of the case is improper under the second and 

third Diaz factors (“lack of adequate time for class members to file other actions, because of a 

rapidly approaching statute of limitations” and “concession of class interests made by the class 

representative or counsel in order to further their own interests”).2 Specifically, they contend that 

Plaintiffs have prejudiced putative class members by failing to pursue PAGA claims in their 

classwide arbitration demand for self-interested purposes and causing the one-year statute of 

limitations to run for at least some potential plaintiffs. However, Defendants do not explain why 

 

1

 In support of their position, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs somehow intended to mislead the 

Court by identifying their dismissal under Rule 41(a) without specifying a subsection. However, 

there is only one subsection applicable to voluntary dismissal without a court order, Rule 

41(a)(1)(A)(i), so this argument is frivolous. 

2

 Defendants do not argue the first Diaz factor, or otherwise contend that absent members of the 

class relied on the filing of this action. 

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United States District Court 

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they believe it is in the class representative or counsel’s self-interest to abandon the PAGA claim 

in arbitration, rather than for other tactical reasons. Defendants also do not explain why they 

believe the statute of limitations has continued to run on this claim during this litigation, given 

caselaw suggesting that the statute of limitations may have been tolled for absent class members 

while the action was pending. See Am. Pipe & Const. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538, 554 (1974) (“the 

commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted 

members of the class who would have been parties had the suit been permitted to continue as a 

class action” ). Finally, given that this litigation was only pending for two months, it is unclear 

whether any or how many class members’ PAGA claims would be barred by the statute of 

limitations or why their rights would not be protected by their ability to pursue related claims. 

 Defendants also argue that dismissal should not be approved because Plaintiffs have 

caused unnecessary delay and expense to the detriment of putative class members because 

Plaintiffs could have presented arguments in favor of classwide arbitrability in their opposition to 

Defendants’ initial motion to compel arbitration, rather than dismissing the case and demanding 

AAA arbitration, which in turn required Defendants to file a new petition to compel arbitration of 

individual claims. Defendants cite cases where courts have refused to dismiss class actions based 

on procedural gamesmanship of Plaintiffs’ counsel, but both cases cited involved far more 

egregious efforts at forum-shopping than appears to be the case here. See Goldstein v. Delgratia 

Min. Co., 176 F.R.D. 454, 458 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (refusing to approve voluntary dismissal of class 

action in response to motion to transfer litigation to MDL where “Plaintiff's hands are so sully 

with untruths, misrepresentations and brazen failure to deal with the facts, he represents a striking 

example of a plaintiff caught with unclean hands” and “[i]n light of Plaintiff's farrago of 

misrepresentations and blatant bare faced violence to the facts, this Court finds it imprudent to 

deal with Plaintiff's motion on its merits because the merits, if any, have been so totally obscured 

to mislead this Court.”); Hamm v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharm. Inc., 176 F.R.D. 566, 571 (D. 

Minn. 1997) aff'd sub nom. Hamm v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharm., Inc., 187 F.3d 941 (8th Cir. 

1999) (requiring court approval of voluntary dismissal of RICO complaint “both because Rule 

23(e) applies and a motion for summary judgment has been considered” and denying approval 

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because plaintiffs chose to bring action in district where no party had a substantial connection to 

the state and only sought to dismiss in the face of adverse authority on their RICO claims, and 

allowing dismissal at that juncture “would waste the substantial efforts expended by the magistrate 

judge and this court and would prejudice the defendants by depriving them of a valid defense.”). 

These cases do not limit this Court’s ability to approve dismissal of the complaint in this case. 

For all of the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal of the complaint before this Court 

is approved and the case is dismissed. 

 Defendants also argue that case 15-cv-1078 currently should be related to this case under 

Local Rule 3-12. Relating cases is intended to prevent “unduly burdensome duplication of labor 

and expense or conflicting results if the cases are conducted before different judges.” Local Rule 

3-12(a)(2). Given that the case before this Court was dismissed before any substantive work on 

the case occurred, there is no risk of duplication of labor or expense by the Court or the parties. 

The cases are not related. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: April 20, 2015 

________________________ 

ELIZABETH D. LAPORTE 

United States Magistrate Judge 

Case 3:15-cv-00676-EDL Document 21 Filed 04/20/15 Page 5 of 5