Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_19-cv-00083/USCOURTS-caed-2_19-cv-00083-3/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Dart Container Corporation
Defendant
Dart Container Corporation of California
Defendant
Angela Flores
Plaintiff

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

ANGELA FLORES, individually and 

on behalf of other similarly 

situated current and former 

employees,

Plaintiff,

v.

DART CONTAINER CORPORATION, a 

Nevada corporation; DART 

CONTAINER CORPORATION OF 

CALIFORNIA, a Michigan 

corporation; and DOES 1-100, 

inclusive,

Defendants.

No. 2:19-cv-00083 WBS EFB

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: 

MOTION TO DISMISS

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff Angela Flores filed this action against Dart 

Container Corporation and Dart Container Corporation of 

California (collectively “Dart”), and Does 1 through 100 

(collectively “defendants”), alleging that defendants furnished 

inaccurate wage statements and underpaid sick leave. Before the 

court is defendants’ motion to dismiss the second, third, and 

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fourth causes of action of plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint 

(“FAC”). (Docket No. 24.) 

I. Relevant Allegations 

Flores was hired by Dart as an Inspector/Packer in 

Dart’s Victor, California warehouse. (FAC ¶ 8 (Docket No. 23).) 

Flores was properly classified as a non-exempt employee of Dart 

and paid on a bi-weekly pay period basis. (Id.) In conjunction 

with each bi-weekly payday, Flores was provided a wage statement 

that purported to document her hours and earnings. (Id. ¶ 11.) 

The wage statements allegedly failed to identify the total hours 

worked during the pay period. (Id. ¶ 14.) Although the wage 

statements contained a column designated “Hours,” the documents 

contained no specific line item for total hours worked. (Id.) 

Further, simply adding the numbers in the “Hours” column did not 

result in a number that accurately reflected the total number of 

hours worked by plaintiff. (Id. ¶ 15.)

In addition, although Dart was required to pay “paid 

sick days” to plaintiff at plaintiff’s regular rate of pay, Dart 

paid plaintiff’s paid sick days at her base hourly rate. (Id. ¶

22.) Shift differentials and other remuneration was not included 

in the calculation of her rate of pay. (Id.)

Plaintiff filed suit individually and on behalf of 

other similarly situated current and former employees alleging 

the following causes of action: (1) failure to furnish accurate 

wage statements, Cal. Labor Code § 226(a); (2) failure to 

properly pay sick leave wages, Cal. Labor Code §§ 218.5; 246(l); 

(3) failure to pay all wages due and owing on separation, Cal. 

Labor Code §§ 203; (4) unfair business practices, Cal. Bus. &

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Prof. Code § 17200 et seq.; and (5) Private Attorney General’s 

Act claim for recovery of civil penalties, Cal. Labor Code § 2698 

et seq. (See generally FAC.) 

II. Failure to Properly Pay Sick Leave Wages (Second Cause of 

Action)

Plaintiff alleges that defendants failed to compensate 

plaintiff for sick leave at the “regular rate of pay” in 

violation of the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act 

(“HWHFA” or “the Act”). See Cal. Labor Code § 246(l)(1). The 

parties agree that the HWHFA does not provide plaintiff a private 

cause of action. (See Mot. at 5; Opp’n at 1 (Docket No. 28); see 

also Titus v. McLane Foodservice, Inc., No. 2:16-CV-00635 KJM

EFB, 2016 WL 4797497, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 14, 2016).) 

Plaintiff instead purports to enforce the HWHFA under Section 218 

of the California Labor Code. 

Section 218 provides that “[n]othing in this article 

shall limit the right of any wage claimant to sue directly or 

through an assignee for any wages or penalty due him under this 

article.” Cal. Labor Code § 218 (emphasis added). Section 218 

falls under Article 1, which spans Sections 200 through 243. 

However, because the HWHFA falls under Article 1.5, which 

includes Sections 245 through 249, rather than Article 1, 

plaintiff cannot rely on Section 218 to enforce the Act. See

Benitez v. Wilbur, No. 1:18-cv-1122 LJO GSA, 2009 WL 498085 (E.D. 

Cal. Feb. 26, 2009); see also Valenzuela v. Giumarra Vineyards 

Corp., 614 F. Supp. 2d 1089, 1101 (E.D. Cal. 2009); Campbell v. 

Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLP, No. CIV. 2:06-cv-2376 LKK GGH, 2007 

WL 841694, at *8 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2007). 

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This court recognizes that the district court in Kamar 

v. RadioShack Corporation, No. CV07-2252AHM(AJWX), 2008 WL 

2229166 (C.D. Cal. May 15, 2008), held that Section 218 

authorized plaintiff’s private action to recover “wages of any 

kind,” not just those specified in Article 1. Id. at *7-8.1 The 

Kamar court noted that when Article 1 was enacted in 1919, 

Article 1 contained “no provision creating any right to a 

particular kind of wages.”2 Kamar, 2008 WL 2229166, at *8. 

Article 1 instead governed “the time and manner of payment.” See

id. Because Section 218 “simply does not specify what kinds of 

wages a worker may seek in a lawsuit,” id., the Kamar court 

interpreted the phrase “wages . . . due under this article” “to 

refer not to a specific mandated category of wages, but to wages 

of any kind that had not been paid in accordance with 

requirements in Article 1 governing the time and manner of 

payment.” Id. (emphasis added). 

Relying on Kamar, plaintiff asks the court to find that 

a plaintiff has a private cause of action simply to recover 

unpaid “wages of any kind.” (Opp’n at 7.) This interpretation 

1 No other court has explicitly decided the issue. 

In Sanchez v. Aerogroup Retail Holdings, Inc., No. 12-CV-05445-

LHK, 2013 WL 1942166, at *6 n.4 (N.D. Cal. May 8, 2013), for 

example, the court considered whether plaintiff had a private 

cause of action under Section 450. The court “[did] not take a 

position on whether Benitez or Kamar is correct.” Id. at *6 n.4. 

The court appeared to agree with Benitez, however, because the 

court noted that “Section 218’s use of the phrase ‘under this 

article’ further undermine[d] the Court’s ability to discern a 

clear legislative intent to authorize an action under Section 450 

as it is not contained in the same article as Section 218.” 

2 In all of Article 1, only Section 226.7, which was 

enacted in 2000, creates such a right. Kamar, 2008 WL 2229166, 

at *8.

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would render the phrase “under this article” superfluous. See

Benitez, 2009 WL 498085, at *4 n.2 (“A right of private action 

under section 218 pertains only to ‘this article.’”). Under this 

interpretation, a plaintiff could avoid all references to Article 

1 in its action under Section 218. This court disagrees with 

plaintiff’s interpretation and instead finds that Section 218 

does not authorize a private cause of action absent allegations 

under Article 1. 

In the alternative, plaintiff contends that the 

allegations support a violation of Section 233 of Article 1. 

Section 233 prohibits employers from denying employees the use of

accrued sick leave. Cal. Labor Code § 233. Plaintiff, however, 

“is not seeking redress for denied sick leave, she is seeking 

redress for the underpayment of redeemed and vested sick pay.” 

(Pl.’s Opp’n at 5; see also FAC ¶ 20.) Because plaintiff does 

not argue that the allegations constitute a violation of any 

other Article 1 provision, plaintiff does not have a private 

cause of action for her HWHFA claim. The court will therefore 

dismiss the Second Cause of Action of the FAC.

III. Failure to Pay All Wages Due and Owing on Separation (Third 

Cause of Action)

Plaintiff alleges a violation of Section 203(a) of the 

California Labor Code. Section 203 does fall under Article 1 and 

is therefore actionable under Section 218. See supra.

An action under this section is not an action to 

collect due and unpaid wages, but rather one to collect a penalty 

arising out of the failure to pay wages. Lane v. Francis Capital 

Mgmt., LLC, 224 Cal. App. 4th 676, 684 (2d Dist. 2014); see also

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Cal. Labor Code § 203; Cal. Labor Code § 218 (authorizing suit 

“for any wages or penalty due him under this article”). To 

allege a claim under Section 203, plaintiff must establish that 

the sick leave defendants allegedly owe plaintiff constitutes

“wages” within the meaning of the statute. See Cal. Labor Code § 

203(b) (“Suit may be filed for these penalties . . . on an action 

for the wages from which the penalties arise.”)

Section 200(a) defines “wages” to include “all amounts 

for labor performed by employees of every description, whether 

the amount is fixed or ascertained by the standard of time, task, 

piece, commission basis, or other method of calculation.” Cal. 

Labor Code § 200(a). This has been interpreted to encompass 

“anything ‘promised as part of the compensation for employment,’ 

and it is due when ‘all conditions agreed to in advance have been 

satisfied.’” Naranjo v. Spectrum Sec. Servs., Inc., 40 Cal. App. 

5th 444, 464 (2d Dist. 2019) (quoting Davis v. Farmers Ins. 

Exch., 245 Cal. App. 4th 1302, 1331 (2016), as modified on denial 

of reh’g (Apr. 21, 2016), 245 Cal. App. 4th at 1331). The 

California Supreme Court construes statutes governing conditions 

of employment, including Section 200(a), “broadly in favor of 

protecting employees.” Murphy, 40 Cal. 4th at 1103.

The court finds that paid sick leave is “wages” within 

the meaning of Section 200(a). In construing the definition of 

“wages” “broadly,” the California Supreme Court has unambiguously 

stated that “wages” encompass “sick pay.” Murphy, 40 Cal. 4th at 

1103 (citing Suastez v. Plastic Dress–Up Co., 31 Cal. 3d 774, 780 

(1982); Dept. of Indus. Relations v. UI Video Stores, Inc., 55 

Cal. App. 4th 1084, 1091 (1st Dist. 1997)). Also, in Katosh v. 

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Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association, 163 Cal. App. 

4th 56 (1st Dist. 2008), the court held that sick leave “when 

taken as time off during the period of employment” constitutes 

“regular compensation” under the Government Code. Id. at 69-70. 

Defendants argue that sick pay does not constitute 

wages because a worker is not entitled to payment of sick days as 

they accrue. Under the HWHFA, “an employer is not required to 

provide compensation to an employee for accrued, unused paid sick 

days upon termination, resignation, retirement, or other 

separation from employment.” Cal. Lab. Code § 246(g)(1). 

Because, unlike other kinds of wages, sick leave does not “vest” 

as labor is rendered, see Suastez, 31 Cal. 3d at 781, defendants 

contend that sick leave is different from wages.

Here, however, plaintiff has already used the sick 

leave at issue. The HWHFA entitles plaintiff to a “regular rate 

of pay” for sick leave taken, and plaintiff alleges that 

defendants paid a lower rate. See Cal. Labor Code § 246(l)(1). 

While, as defendants correctly point out, pursuant to Section 

246(g)(1), defendants do not owe plaintiff compensation for 

“accrued, unused” sick leave, defendants owe plaintiff accurate 

payment of sick leave already taken. See id. Although sick 

leave may not vest as labor is rendered, it vests when it is 

taken, as is the case here. 

For the foregoing reasons, the court finds that sick 

leave constitutes “wages,” and will not dismiss the Third Cause 

of Action of the FAC.

IV. Unfair Business Practices (Fourth Cause of Action)

To bring a claim for unfair business practices in 

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violation of the Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, a plaintiff must 

show either (1) unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business acts or 

practices, or (2) unfair, deceptive, untrue, or misleading 

advertising. Lippitt v. Raymond James Fin. Servs., Inc., 340 

F.3d 1033, 1043 (9th Cir. 2003) (citing Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 

17200). Section 17200 is a “borrowing statute” that effectively 

renders violation of “virtually any law” actionable under its 

“unlawful” prong. Gafcon, Inc. v. Ponsor & Assocs., 98 Cal. App. 

4th 1388, 1425 n.15 (4th Dist. 2002); Shasta Linen Supply, Inc. 

v. Applied Underwriters, Inc., No. 2:16-00158 WBS AC, 2017 WL 

4652758 * 8 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 17, 2017). Section 17200 thus makes 

violations of other statutes “independently actionable.” Gafcon, 

98 Cal. App. 4th at 1425 n.15. 

Defendants do not dispute that the allegations in the 

complaint sufficiently allege that defendants have failed to 

comply with the HWHFA. Further, at oral argument, defendants 

agreed that plaintiff has successfully alleged a § 17200 claim 

for restitution only. Accordingly, the court will not dismiss 

the Fourth Cause of Action.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendants’ motion to 

dismiss (Docket No. 24) be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED as to 

the Second Cause of Action and DENIED as to the Third and Fourth

Causes of Action of the First Amended Complaint.

Dated: May 27, 2020

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