Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_23-cv-00043/USCOURTS-caed-2_23-cv-00043-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 28:1441 Petition for Removal- Labor/Mgmnt. Relations

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DAVID JOSEPHSON,

Plaintiff,

v.

LAMON CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, 

INC.,

Defendant.

No. 2:23-cv-00043-DAD-AC

ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION 

TO REMAND

(Doc. No. 21)

This matter is before the court on plaintiff’s motion to remand this action to the Sutter 

County Superior Court. (Doc. No. 21.) On April 21, 2023, the motion was taken under 

submission on the papers pursuant to Local Rule 230(g). For the reasons explained below, the 

court will deny plaintiff’s motion to remand.

BACKGROUND

On November 8, 2022, plaintiff filed a class action lawsuit against defendant Lamon 

Construction Company, Inc. (“defendant”) and unnamed defendants Does 1–100 in the Sutter 

County Superior Court. (Doc. No. 1-4 at 5.) On January 9, 2023, defendant removed the action 

to this federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1441, on the grounds that federal question 

jurisdiction exists because plaintiff’s claims are preempted under § 301 of the Labor Management 

Rights Act (“LMRA”), 29 U.S.C. § 185. (Doc. No. 1 at 3.) On January 30, 2023, plaintiff filed 

Case 2:23-cv-00043-AC Document 41 Filed 12/08/23 Page 1 of 9
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the operative first amended complaint (“FAC”) asserting the following seven causes of action: 

(1) failure to pay minimum wages in violation of California Labor Code §§ 1194 and 1197 and 

the applicable Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) wage order; (2) failure to provide 

required meal periods in violation of California Labor Code §§ 226.7 and 512 and the applicable 

IWC wage order; (3) failure to pay rest period premiums in violation of California Labor Code 

§ 226.7 and the applicable IWC wage order; (4) failure to provide correct wage statements in 

violation of California Labor Code § 226; (5) failure to pay all wages due upon separation of 

employment in violation of California Labor Code §§ 201 and 202; (6) failure to reimburse 

employees for required expenses in violation of California Labor Code § 2802; and (7) unfair 

competition in violation of California Business and Professions Code § 17200, et seq. (Id.) 

On April 7, 2023, plaintiff filed the pending motion to remand, asserting that none of his

claims are preempted. (Doc. No. 21.) Defendant filed an opposition on April 21, 2023, and 

plaintiff filed his reply thereto on May 1, 2023. (Doc. Nos. 25, 31.) 

LEGAL STANDARD

A suit filed in state court may be removed to federal court if the federal court would have 

had original jurisdiction over the suit. 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Removal is proper when a case 

originally filed in state court presents a federal question or where there is diversity of citizenship 

among the parties and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 

1332(a).

The defendant seeking removal of an action from state court bears the burden of 

establishing grounds for federal jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence. Geographic 

Expeditions, Inc. v. Est. of Lhotka ex rel. Lhotka, 599 F.3d 1102, 1106–07 (9th Cir. 2010); Hunter 

v. Philip Morris USA, 582 F.3d 1039, 1042 (9th Cir. 2009); Gaus v. Miles, Inc., 980 F.2d 564, 

566–67 (9th Cir. 1992). “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court 

lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c). If there is 

any doubt as to the right of removal, a federal court must reject jurisdiction and remand the case 

to state court. Matheson v. Progressive Specialty Ins. Co., 319 F.3d 1089, 1090 (9th Cir. 2003); 

see also Valdez v. Allstate Ins. Co., 372 F.3d 1115, 1118 (9th Cir. 2004). 

Case 2:23-cv-00043-AC Document 41 Filed 12/08/23 Page 2 of 9
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A party’s notice of removal must contain “a short and plain statement of the grounds for 

removal.” 28 U.S.C. § 1446(a). “By design, § 1446(a) tracks the general pleading requirement 

stated in Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” and a “statement ‘short and plain’ 

need not contain evidentiary submissions.” Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co., LLC v. Owens, 

574 U.S. 81, 84, 87 (2014); see also Ramirez-Duenas v. VF Outdoor, LLC, No. 1:17-cv-0161-

AWI-SAB, 2017 WL 1437595, at *2 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 41, 2017) (“The notice of removal may rely 

on the allegations of the complaint and need not be accompanied by any extrinsic evidence.”).

“The presence or absence of federal-question jurisdiction is governed by the ‘well-pleaded 

complaint rule,’ which provides that federal jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is 

presented on the face of the plaintiff’s properly pleaded complaint.” Caterpillar Inc. v. Williams, 

482 U.S. 386, 392 (1987); Hansen v. Grp. Health Coop., 902 F.3d 1051, 1057 (9th Cir. 2018) 

(“Removal based on federal-question jurisdiction is reviewed under the longstanding wellpleaded complaint rule.”). “[T]he presence of a federal question . . . in a defensive argument does 

not overcome the paramount policies embodied in the well-pleaded complaint rule—that the 

plaintiff is the master of the complaint, that a federal question must appear on the face of the 

complaint, and that the plaintiff may, by eschewing claims based on federal law, choose to have 

the cause heard in state court.” Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 398–99.

ANALYSIS

A. Preemption under § 301 of the LMRA

In its notice of removal, defendant asserts that this court has federal question jurisdiction 

over this action. (Doc. No. 1 at 3.) Defendant argues that several of plaintiff’s claims are 

preempted by § 301 of the LMRA because they either exist solely under or their adjudication 

requires interpretation of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between 

Lamon Construction Company and Local Union No. 3 of the International Union of Operating 

Engineers, AFL-CIO. (Id. at 2.) In the pending motion to remand, plaintiff seeks remand of this 

case to the Sutter County Superior Court on the ground that he brings claims only under 

California law that do not support federal question subject matter jurisdiction. (Doc. No. 21.)

Plaintiff argues that none of his claims are preempted because his claims do not rely on the CBA 

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or depend on an interpretation of the provisions of the CBA. (Id. at 7.) The central question

posed here is whether, as defendant argues, plaintiff’s claims are preempted by federal law. 

Discussion of the relevant legal framework with respect to that issue is therefore necessary.

Section 301 of the LMRA, codified at 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), provides federal courts with 

original jurisdiction, regardless of the amount in controversy or citizenship of the parties, over 

any lawsuits “for violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization 

representing employees in an industry affecting commerce.” 29 U.S.C. § 185(a). In the specific 

context of preemption under § 301 of the LMRA, the Ninth Circuit has recognized that 

preemption “has such ‘extraordinary pre-emptive power’ that it ‘converts an ordinary state 

common law complaint into one stating a federal claim for purposes of the well-pleaded 

complaint rule.’” Curtis v. Irwin Indus., Inc., 913 F.3d 1146, 1152 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting 

Metro. Life Ins. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 65 (1987)); see also Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 392 (“The 

presence or absence of federal-question jurisdiction is governed by the ‘well-pleaded complaint 

rule,’ which provides that federal jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented on 

the face of the plaintiff’s properly pleaded complaint.”); Hansen v. Grp. Health Coop., 902 F.3d

at 1057 (“Removal based on federal-question jurisdiction is reviewed under the longstanding 

well-pleaded complaint rule.”). 

Section 301 “authoriz[es] federal courts to create a uniform body of federal common law 

to adjudicate disputes that arise out of labor contracts.” Id. at 1151 (citing Allis-Chalmers Corp. 

v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 210 (1985) and Loc. 174, Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & 

Helpers of Am. v. Lucas Flour Co., 369 U.S. 95, 103–04 (1962)). As the Ninth Circuit has 

explained,

federal preemption under § 301 “is an essential component of 

federal labor policy” for three reasons. Alaska Airlines Inc. v. 

Schurke, 898 F.3d 904, 917–18 (9th Cir. 2018) (en banc). First, “a 

collective bargaining agreement is more than just a contract; it is an 

effort to erect a system of industrial self-government.” Id. at 918 

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, a CBA is 

part of the “continuous collective bargaining process.” United 

Steelworkers v. Enter. Wheel & Car Corp. (Steelworkers III), 363 

U.S. 593, 596 (1960). Second, because the CBA is designed to 

govern the entire employment relationship, including disputes 

which the drafters may not have anticipated, it “calls into being a 

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new common law—the common law of a particular industry or of a

particular plant.” United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf 

Navigation Co. (Steelworkers II), 363 U.S. 574, 579 (1960). 

Accordingly, the labor arbitrator is usually the appropriate 

adjudicator for CBA disputes because he was chosen due to the 

“‘parties’ confidence in his knowledge of the common law of the 

shop and their trust in his personal judgment to bring to bear 

considerations which are not expressed in the contract as criteria for 

judgment.” Id. at 582. Third, grievance and arbitration procedures 

“provide certain procedural benefits, including a more prompt and 

orderly settlement of CBA disputes than that offered by the 

ordinary judicial process.” Schurke, 898 F.3d at 918 (internal 

quotation marks and citation omitted).

Id. at 1152. 

The determination of whether a claim is preempted by § 301 is made by way of a two-step 

inquiry. The first question is “whether the asserted cause of action involves a right conferred 

upon an employee by virtue of state law,” or if instead the right is conferred by a CBA. Burnside 

v. Kiewit Pac. Corp., 491 F.3d 1053, 1059 (9th Cir. 2007). This step requires the court to 

consider “the legal character of a claim, as ‘independent’ of rights under the collective-bargaining 

agreement [and] not whether a grievance arising from ‘precisely the same set of facts’ could be 

pursued.” Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U.S. 107, 123 (1994) (citation omitted). If the asserted 

cause of action is conferred solely by the CBA, the claim is preempted. Burnside, 491 F.3d at

1059. If not, the court must still decide whether the claim is “‘substantially dependent’ on the 

terms of a CBA” by determining “whether the claim can be resolved by ‘looking to’ versus 

interpreting the CBA.” Id. at 1059–60 (citations omitted). “The term ‘interpret’ is defined 

narrowly—it means something more than ‘consider,’ ‘refer to,’ or ‘apply.’” Balcorta v. 

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 208 F.3d 1102, 1108 (9th Cir. 2000). If the claim requires 

interpretation of the CBA, the claim is preempted; if the claim merely requires “looking to” the 

CBA, it is not preempted. Burnside, 491 F.3d at 1060. Once preempted, “any claim purportedly 

based on that pre-empted state law is considered, from its inception, a federal claim, and therefore 

arises under federal law.” Caterpillar, 482 U.S. at 393.

B. Application 

Here, defendant offers undisputed evidence that plaintiff was subject to the terms of a 

CBA between defendant and the Local Union No. 3 of the International Union of Operating 

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Engineers, AFL-CIO during his employment with defendant. (Doc. Nos. 1-5, 25.) Based on that 

showing, defendant contends in its opposition that plaintiff’s meal period claim is preempted by 

§ 301 at the first step of the Burnside inquiry. (Doc. No. 25 at 12–13.)

1. Meal Period Claim 

With respect to the first step of the analysis set out by the court in Burnside, defendant 

persuasively argues that plaintiff’s meal period claim is preempted because his right to meal 

periods exists solely as a result of the CBA. (Doc. No. 25 at 13.) 

California Labor Code § 512(a) sets forth requirements for providing meal breaks to 

employees and § 226.7 requires an employer to pay “one additional hour of pay” to any employee 

who is not provided a requisite meal break. The California Labor Code also provides, however, 

that subdivision (a) of § 512 does not apply to an individual “employed in a construction 

occupation” if “both of the following conditions are satisfied”:

(1) The employee is covered by a valid collective bargaining 

agreement.

(2) The valid collective bargaining agreement expressly provides 

for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions of employees, 

and expressly provides for meal periods for those employees, final 

and binding arbitration of disputes concerning application of its 

meal period provisions, premium wage rates for all overtime hours 

worked, and a regular hourly rate of pay of not less than 30 percent 

more than the state minimum wage rate.

California Labor Code § 512(e)-(f).

Here, it is undisputed that plaintiff was employed in a construction occupation; in the 

FAC, plaintiff alleges he was employed by defendant as a “non-exempt” “construction worker” 

from “late 2019 through February 2022.” (Doc. No. 8 at 2.) Furthermore, defendant has 

submitted undisputed evidence that the CBA contains express provisions satisfying each of the 

conditions set forth in § 512(e)(2). (See Doc. No. 1-5 at 4–27, 80–87, 101 (expressly providing 

for wages); 38 (expressly providing for hours of work); 49–50, 67 (expressly providing for 

working conditions); 41 (expressly providing for meal periods); 43 (expressly providing for final 

and binding arbitration of disputes concerning application of its meal period provisions); 62

(expressly providing premium wage rates for overtime); 4–27, 80–87, 101 (expressly providing a 

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base rate of pay of more than 30 percent of the applicable California minimum wage).) As a 

result, plaintiff’s right to meal periods “exists solely as a result of the CBA.” Curtis, 913 F.3d at 

1155 (establishing that a plaintiff’s right to overtime is preempted when the operating CBA meets 

the applicable requirements); see also Marquez v. Toll Glob. Forwarding, 804 F. App’x 679, 680

(9th Cir. 2020)1(“Marquez’s meal period claims under Cal. Lab. Code § 512(a) are statutorily 

barred by § 512(e)’s ‘commercial driver’ exception, which exempts commercial drivers covered 

by a CBA meeting the requirements of § 512(e) from the meal period requirements of § 512(a)” 

and, “[a]s a result, Marquez’s right to meal periods ‘exist[s] solely as a result of the [CBAs].’”) 

(quoting Curtis, 913 F.3d at 1155). 

In the pending motion to remand, plaintiff argues that the fact that his meal period claim is 

potentially subject to an exemption does not change that his right to meal periods is governed by 

provisions of the California Labor Code as opposed to the CBA. (Doc. No. 21 at 14.) Because 

plaintiff did not raise the CBA in his FAC, he argues that defendant’s reliance on the CBA and 

invocation of the exemption are part of an affirmative defense, which does not alter the nature of 

his claim. (See id.) (citing Galeano v. Am. etc., Inc., No. 16-cv-00033-PJH, 2016 WL 908093, at 

*1, *5 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 10, 2016); Cuellar-Ramirez v. US Foods, Inc., No. 16-cv-00085-RS, 2016 

WL 1238603, at *1, *13 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 22, 2016)). However, the cases relied upon by plaintiff 

in support of this assertion come from a time of a split amongst district courts in the Ninth Circuit 

as to whether claims were preempted under the first prong of the Burnside test when the plaintiffs

did not mention a CBA in their complaints. That split was resolved by the Ninth Circuit in its 

decision in Curtis. 913 F.3d at 1152 (“Although normally federal preemption is a defense that 

does not authorize removal to federal court, § 301 has such ‘extraordinary pre-emptive power’

that it ‘converts an ordinary state common law complaint into one stating a federal claim for 

purposes of the well-pleaded complaint rule.’”) (citation omitted); see also Marquez, 804 F. 

App’x at 680 (holding that under the reasoning in Curtis, meal period claims are preempted by

the LMRA where the § 512(e) requirements are satisfied); Radcliff v. San Diego Gas & Elec. Co.,

1

 Citation to this unpublished Ninth Circuit opinion is appropriate pursuant to Ninth Circuit Rule 

36-3(b).

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519 F. Supp. 3d 743, 751–52 (S.D. Cal. 2021) (denying the plaintiff’s motion to remand after 

discussing how the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Marquez applied Curtis to preempt meal period 

claims when the requirements of § 512(e) were satisfied); Giles v. Canus Corp., No. 22-cv03097-MMC, 2022 WL 3370793, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 16, 2022) (citing the decision in Marquez

in concluding that a construction employee subject to a CBA that met the requirements of 

§ 512(e) had a right to meal periods solely as a result of the CBA and thus his meal period claim 

was preempted). 

Accordingly, the court concludes that plaintiff’s meal period claim is preempted by § 301 

of the LMRA.

2. Supplemental Jurisdiction 

Plaintiff’s remaining claims arise from the same working conditions and relationship with 

defendant as plaintiff’s claims for failure to provide required meal periods. (See Doc. No. 8.) 

The court therefore finds that the claims derive from a “common nucleus of operative fact” and 

that this court has supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s remaining claims. See Kuba v. 1–A 

Agric. Ass’n, 387 F.3d 850, 855 (9th Cir. 2004) (exercising supplemental jurisdiction where 

remaining claims are “derive[d] from a common nucleus of operative fact” and of the nature 

which “a plaintiff would ordinarily be expected to try them in one judicial proceeding.”); see also 

Rodriguez v. Sukut Constr., Inc., No. 1:22-cv-01181-CDB, 2022 WL 17547526, at *8 (E.D. Cal. 

Dec. 9, 2022) (exercising supplemental jurisdiction after finding that the plaintiff’s overtime and 

meal break claims were preempted “to avoid needless expense of judicial resources and the 

potential for inconsistent judgments due to parallel proceedings”); Blackwell v. Com. 

Refrigeration Specialists, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-01968-KJM-CKD, 2021 WL 2634501, at *5 (E.D. 

Cal. June 25, 2021) (exercising supplemental jurisdiction over “other wage and hour 

violations . . . which arise out of the same employment relationship that gave rise to plaintiff’s 

meal period and overtime claims” which were found to be preempted); Giles, 2022 WL 3370793, 

at *6 (exercising supplemental jurisdiction over remaining claims after finding wage and meal 

break claims preempted). Because of this, the court need not consider the parties’ arguments as 

to plaintiff’s remaining claims over which the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction is appropriate.

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CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, plaintiff’s motion to remand this action to the Sutter 

County Superior Court (Doc. No. 21) is denied. This case remains scheduled for a Status (Pretrial 

Scheduling) Conference before the assigned Magistrate Judge on February 7, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. 

via Zoom. (Doc. No. 40.) 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 7, 2023 

DALE A. DROZD

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 2:23-cv-00043-AC Document 41 Filed 12/08/23 Page 9 of 9