Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01938/USCOURTS-cand-3_20-cv-01938-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lyft, Inc.
Defendant
John Rogers
Plaintiff

Document Text:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JOHN ROGERS, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

LYFT, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 20-cv-01938-VC 

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND 

DENYING IN PART MOTION TO 

COMPEL ARBITRATION; 

REMANDING REQUEST FOR 

PUBLIC INJUNCTION

Re: Dkt. Nos. 8, 19

In this case, three Lyft drivers have filed an emergency motion to require Lyft to 

reclassify all of its drivers in California from “independent contractor” to “employee” status, as 

required by California’s new law governing worker classification. The plaintiffs’ frustration with 

Lyft’s steadfast refusal to comply with the new law is understandable. While the status of Lyft 

drivers was previously uncertain, it is now clear that drivers for companies like Lyft must be 

classified as employees.

But this lawsuit—which was filed hurriedly in an attempt to capitalize on the coronavirus 

pandemic—is riddled with defects. The fact that Lyft is ignoring an obvious legal obligation 

does not permit this Court to brush those defects aside. Nor, for that matter, does the current 

health crisis. The plaintiffs’ motion for an emergency injunction reclassifying Lyft drivers is 

denied; Lyft’s motion to compel the individual claims to arbitration is granted; Lyft’s motion to 

strike the class allegations is granted; and the remaining claim for public injunctive relief is 

remanded to state court because this Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain it.

I

Although the plaintiffs’ motion for emergency relief is dominated by technical legal 

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questions, it’s worth taking a moment to put the matter in context. The coronavirus pandemic has 

caused millions of people to lose their jobs entirely. Millions more have seen their income 

streams decimated. And many of these people were already living hand to mouth. Their only 

recourse during the crisis will be to rely on emergency aid from the federal and state 

governments—aid like cash payments, unemployment benefits, emergency refundable tax 

credits, and sick pay.

In the midst of all this, a few Lyft drivers have rushed to court with a class action lawsuit 

seeking an emergency ruling that requires the company to reclassify its drivers from 

“independent contractor” to “employee” status. They are represented by a lawyer who has been 

filing similar suits against Lyft and other “gig economy” companies for years. What makes this

an emergency, in their view, is that if Lyft is finally forced to reclassify its drivers, those drivers 

will potentially qualify for sick pay under California law.

At first glance, this case might seem to present the kind of situation that would justify an 

emergency motion. Sick leave policies, the plaintiffs correctly note, generally decrease the 

chances that people will go to work sick. And especially during this health crisis, the public 

interest favors more access to paid sick leave so that people will avoid going to work sick—

especially when “going to work” means occupying close quarters in a car with other people. But 

the question whether Lyft drivers to qualify for California sick pay is less of an emergency than 

the plaintiffs suggest, for at least three reasons. 

First, even if drivers were reclassified, the amount of sick pay involved would be small.

See Cal. Labor Code § 246. Although a handful of drivers might qualify for three days’ worth of 

sick pay per year (the amount at which employers can cap usage under California law), most 

Lyft drivers would not qualify for anything close to that. The record suggests that roughly 41 

percent of the drivers haven’t accrued enough hours of work to qualify for sick pay at all. And

even for those who do qualify, a significant percentage would get four hours (that is, a half day)

or less.

Second, if the Court ordered Lyft to reclassify its drivers immediately, it’s possible that 

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the drivers would lose the opportunity to obtain emergency assistance totaling thousands of 

dollars from the federal government. Take, for example, sick leave. The Families First 

Coronavirus Response Act offers substantial sick pay to independent contractors sidelined by 

coronavirus. Pub. L. No. 116-127, § 7002, 134 Stat. 178, 212 (2020). The Act makes 

independent contractors eligible for up to ten days of paid sick leave in the form of refundable 

tax credits worth up to the lesser of $511 per day or their average daily income last year. 

§ 7002(c)(1)(B), 134 Stat. at 212. But if Lyft drivers were employees, they might not qualify for 

these benefits. The Act funds sick pay for employees too, but it excludes people who work for 

companies with 500 or more employees. §§ 5102, 5110(2)(B)(i)(I)(aa), 134 Stat. at 195–96, 199.

Lyft has well more than 500 drivers in California, so Lyft drivers (once classified as employees)

might not be entitled to any type of sick pay under the new federal legislation. In addition, 

independent contractors can apply for a forgivable small business loan through the Paycheck 

Protection Program to cover up to 250 percent of their monthly income as a measure of “payroll 

costs.” Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), Pub. L. No. 116-136,

§ 1102(a)(2), 134 Stat. 281, 286–93 (2020). If Lyft drivers are immediately switched from 

independent contractor to employee status, they could lose their entitlement to this relief as well.

Nor have the plaintiffs identified any additional benefits that employees of large employers

receive under the emergency federal legislation that would offset these potential losses. 

Third, even if the drivers wouldn’t lose federal relief upon reclassification, it is 

indisputable that the small amounts of paid sick leave that would be available to some Lyft 

drivers under California Labor Code § 246 pale in comparison to the assistance workers will be 

able to get from the emergency legislation. See, e.g., CARES Act § 2102(a)(3), (c), 134 Stat. at 

313–15 (authorizing up to 39 weeks of unemployment assistance to independent contractors who 

cannot work or lost their job due to coronavirus but would not otherwise qualify for 

unemployment benefits); § 2104(b)(1)(B), (e)(2), 134 Stat. at 318–19 (augmenting 

unemployment benefits with $600 weekly payment through end of July); § 2201(a), 134 Stat. at 

335 (establishing recovery rebate that, for example, pays out $1,200 to individual filers with 

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adjusted gross income under $75,000).

Against this backdrop, the plaintiffs insist that if they don’t get their zero to three days of 

paid sick leave immediately, they are willing to put their passengers at risk. One of the plaintiffs, 

for example, insists that (unless he is reclassified) he will continue to give rides even if he 

develops coronavirus symptoms and would expose his passengers to the disease. At the same 

time, however, this driver says that business has fallen off sharply—to the point that he’s been 

unable to get a fare for ten days. The upshot of his position, then, is as follows: He currently has 

little chance of making more than a few dollars a week by giving a ride or two, but if he has an 

opportunity to make those few dollars, he will not allow coronavirus symptoms to prevent him 

from doing so, even at risk of killing his passengers, even though that money will be a drop in 

the bucket compared to the assistance he could get from the emergency legislation, and even 

though obtaining that drop could shrink the overall size of the bucket. 

While there’s no justification for the tone-deafness of the position advanced by the 

plaintiffs and their lawyer as this crisis unfolds, perhaps there’s an explanation for how they got 

there. As previously noted, the effort to require gig companies like Lyft to reclassify their 

workers has been underway for years. That effort has thus far been unsuccessful in the courts, a 

string of defeats and stalemates explained both by the widespread use of forced arbitration by 

these companies and by the previous lack of clarity in the law. See Cotter v. Lyft, Inc., 60 

F. Supp. 3d 1067, 1078–81 (N.D. Cal. 2015). But California’s new A.B. 5, which was passed in 

September 2019 and became operative January 1, 2020, makes clear that a company’s workers 

must be classified as employees if the work they perform is not outside the usual course of the 

company’s business. See Cal. Labor Code § 2750.3(a)(1); see also Dynamex Operations West, 

Inc. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal. 5th 903, 959–61 (2018). That test is obviously met here: Lyft 

drivers provide services that are squarely within the usual course of the company’s business, and 

Lyft’s argument to the contrary is frivolous. See Cotter, 60 F. Supp. 3d at 1078; see also

Namisak v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 17-cv-6124-RS, 2020 WL 1283484, at *4 (N.D. Cal. 

Mar. 13, 2020); O’Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc., 82 F. Supp. 3d 1133, 1144 (N.D. Cal. 

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2015); Yellow Cab Cooperative, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, 226 

Cal. App. 3d 1288, 1293–94 (1991); cf. People v. Maplebear, Inc., No. 2019-48731-CU-MCCTL (Cal. Super. Ct. Feb. 18, 2020). But rather than comply with a clear legal obligation, 

companies like Lyft are thumbing their noses at the California Legislature, not to mention the 

public officials who have primary responsibility for enforcing A.B. 5.1

In short, there are no heroes in the story of this case. But there are several complicated 

legal questions, to which this ruling now turns. The first question is whether the plaintiffs’ 

individual claims must be compelled to arbitration. The second is whether the plaintiffs have 

waived their right to pursue claims on behalf of a class of Lyft drivers in California. The third 

involves how the Court should handle the plaintiffs’ request for a “public injunction.”

II

The plaintiffs resist Lyft’s motion to compel arbitration on three grounds. First, they

assert that the Court should sidestep the motion to compel and proceed directly to their motion 

for a preliminary injunction. Second, they invoke the exemption in the Federal Arbitration Act 

(FAA) for transportation workers. See 9 U.S.C. § 1. And third, they contend that their request for 

a public injunction is not arbitrable even if the FAA applies to the arbitration agreement.

A

It would not be appropriate to plow ahead on the motion for a preliminary injunction 

before ruling on Lyft’s motion to compel. Injunctive relief and arbitration are not incompatible; 

indeed, sometimes the parties’ agreement to arbitrate can be vindicated only if a court issues 

interim relief. See PMS Distributing Co. v. Huber & Suhner, A.G., 863 F.2d 639, 641 (9th Cir. 

1988). But the principle that authorizes a pre-arbitration preliminary injunction—preservation of 

1 On a policy level, reasonable minds can differ on whether gig workers for companies like Lyft 

should be treated like traditional employees. Indeed, this Court suggested in a prior ruling that 

perhaps a separate category, with a distinct set of protections, should be created for gig workers. 

Cotter, 60 F. Supp. 3d at 1082. But the California Legislature has now spoken on the policy 

question, and it has decided that workers like those who drive for Lyft must be classified as 

employees. The policy question having been decided, the legal question is easy—A.B. 5 contains 

no exception for wealthy corporations that disagree with the Legislature’s policy judgment and 

would rather not spend money to effectuate that judgment.

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the parties’ arbitral rights—also limits the court’s discretion in this regard. As the Ninth Circuit 

put it, “a district court may issue interim injunctive relief on arbitrable claims if interim relief is 

necessary to preserve the status quo and the meaningfulness of the arbitration process.” Toyo 

Tire Holdings of Americas Inc. v. Continental Tire North America, Inc., 609 F.3d 975, 981 (9th 

Cir. 2010).

The requested injunction is not ancillary to the arbitration process, nor would it maintain

the status quo. Even putting aside the arbitration agreement, a mandatory injunction that “goes 

well beyond simply maintaining the status quo” by ordering a party to take affirmative action is 

“particularly disfavored.” Garcia v. Google, Inc., 786 F.3d 733, 740 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). And if the parties agreed that the arbitrator would get the first 

stab at the classification question, the issuance of the preliminary injunction would reclaim for 

the judiciary a matter assigned by the parties to arbitration. See Simula, Inc. v. Autoliv, Inc., 175 

F.3d 716, 725–26 (9th Cir. 1999). The plaintiffs want now what an arbitrator might (or might 

not) provide later: an order compelling Lyft to reclassify all California drivers as employees. Nor 

is the analysis different because the plaintiffs invoke a provision of California’s Unfair 

Competition Law that authorizes public injunctions, a state-law concept that aims to remedy the 

general public’s injury from unfair competition. Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17203; see McGill v. 

Citibank, N.A., 2 Cal. 5th 945, 955 (2017). Arbitrators are capable of adjudicating requests for 

public injunctions, no less than requests for private injunctions. See Blair v. Rent-A-Center, Inc.,

928 F.3d 819, 828 (9th Cir. 2019); see also Ferguson v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc., 733 F.3d 928, 

937 (9th Cir. 2013) (holding that the FAA preempts state law that prohibits arbitration of public 

injunctions). In short, court-ordered reclassification of Lyft drivers prior to arbitration would 

displace, rather than preserve, the arbitration process. Of course, whether to compel the claims to 

arbitration (and, more to the point, which claims to compel) is a separate question. But that 

question cannot be disregarded at the outset.

B

Proceeding to Lyft’s motion to compel, the parties dispute whether the FAA applies to 

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the arbitration agreement. We have been told time and again that the FAA embodies a “liberal

federal policy favoring arbitration agreements.” Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S. Ct. 1612, 

1621 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet we are reminded just as frequently that no 

legislation “pursues its purposes at all costs.” Hernández v. Mesa, 140 S. Ct. 735, 741–42 (2020)

(internal quotation marks omitted). And so it is that the FAA does not apply—at all—to whole 

industries of workers. In its very first provision, the FAA disclaims that “nothing herein 

contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other 

class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1.

The plaintiffs, as the parties resisting arbitration, bear the burden of proving that this

exemption applies. See Rogers v. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, 547 F.3d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 

2008). They obviously aren’t seamen or railroad employees, but they claim membership in some

“other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” The Supreme Court has 

narrowly interpreted this phrase as a residual clause covering only “transportation workers” who 

are “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.” Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 

105, 119 (2001).2

The applicability of this exemption is for the Court to decide. As the Supreme Court 

confirmed last Term, “a court should decide for itself whether § 1’s ‘contracts of employment’ 

exclusion applies before ordering arbitration.” New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 139 S. Ct. 532, 537

(2019). New Prime also settled another aspect of the transportation worker exemption: Although 

section 1 employs the phrase “contracts of employment,” that term includes “agreements that 

require independent contractors to perform work.” Id. at 539. Lyft does not contest that the 

Terms of Service containing the arbitration agreement is a contract of employment under this 

definition, notwithstanding the parties’ dispute over the proper classification of the drivers. So

the only remaining question is whether the plaintiffs belong to “any . . . class of workers engaged 

2 Even if the FAA does not apply to an arbitration agreement, state law might still mandate 

arbitration of a dispute. See Breazeale v. Victim Services, Inc., 198 F. Supp. 3d 1070, 1079 (N.D. 

Cal. 2016). But Lyft hasn’t argued here that the plaintiffs can be compelled to arbitrate under 

California law if they are exempt transportation workers.

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in foreign or interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1.

Lyft first argues broadly that transportation workers can qualify for exemption from the 

FAA only if they transport goods (as opposed to people) in interstate commerce. Lyft relies on 

the Supreme Court’s choice to underscore “Congress’ demonstrated concern with transportation 

workers and their necessary role in the free flow of goods” when interpreting the statute. Circuit 

City, 532 U.S. at 121; see also id. at 112 (agreeing with the majority of circuits that had limited 

the exemption “to transportation workers, defined, for instance, as those workers ‘actually 

engaged in the movement of goods in interstate commerce’”) (internal quotation marks omitted);

Cole v. Burns International Security Services, 105 F.3d 1465, 1471 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (collecting 

circuits with similar definitions). 

Several district courts have relied on these statements to conclude that section 1 of the 

FAA exempts only those who transport physical goods. See, e.g., Kowalewski v. Samandarov, 

590 F. Supp. 2d 477, 483–84 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). But the Supreme Court and those circuit courts, 

while mentioning only goods, did not expressly consider whether section 1 encompasses 

passenger transportation as well. Meanwhile, the Third Circuit recently concluded that the 

exemption can apply to workers who transport passengers. Singh v. Uber Technologies Inc., 939 

F.3d 210, 226 (3d Cir. 2019). And the Ninth Circuit, before Circuit City, described the 

transportation worker exemption more broadly as applying to “the contracts of employees who 

actually transport people or goods in interstate commerce.” Craft v. Campbell Soup Co., 177 

F.3d 1083, 1085 (9th Cir. 1999) (per curiam). With only non-binding authority and dicta on 

either side, the parties will have to sink or swim based on the persuasiveness of their arguments.

The traditional tools of statutory interpretation all point in the same direction: Section 1 is 

not limited to classes of workers who transport goods in interstate commerce. As an initial 

matter, the goods-passengers distinction is nowhere to be found in the statutory text, which refers 

to “foreign or interstate commerce.” The term “commerce” is “not normally limited to the 

transportation of only physical goods.” Singh, 939 F.3d at 229 (Porter, J., concurring in part and 

concurring in the judgment). To the contrary, “it is settled beyond question that the transportation 

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of persons is ‘commerce’” for constitutional purposes, an understanding that prevailed well 

before the enactment of the FAA. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 172 (1941); see Head 

Money Cases, 112 U.S. 580, 591–93 (1884). The constitutional meaning is particularly relevant 

here because the FAA tracks the Commerce Clause by defining “commerce” to include 

“commerce among the several States or with foreign nations.” 9 U.S.C. § 1; see U.S. Const. 

art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Nor can the goods-passengers distinction be justified by the ordinary meaning of 

the term “commerce” in 1925. See New Prime, 139 S. Ct. at 542. Contemporary sources often 

describe the transportation of goods and passengers in the same breath as commerce. See, e.g.,

Norfolk & Western Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 136 U.S. 114, 119 (1890); United Dredging 

Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 10 F.2d 239, 239 (S.D. Cal. 1926). And the longstanding modern 

definition of “in commerce” continues to be “persons or activities within the flow of interstate 

commerce.” Gulf Oil Corp. v. Copp Paving Co., 419 U.S. 186, 195 (1974). Lyft’s narrow

interpretation still comes up empty “by reference to the enumerated categories of workers which 

are recited just before” the residual clause. Circuit City, 532 U.S. at 115. The ships and trains 

that transport passengers are staffed by seamen and railroad workers, just like the ones that 

transport goods. See Singh, 939 F.3d at 221–22. In fact, the Supreme Court’s lone example of a 

class of workers engaged in interstate commerce—“air carriers and their employees”—is 

associated more with the transportation of passengers than goods. Circuit City, 532 U.S. at 121.

All that remains is the FAA’s pro-arbitration purpose and the statement in Circuit City that the 

exemption in section 1 should be given a “narrow construction.” Id. at 118. But these general

mantras can’t will a statute where text, history, and precedent won’t take it. New Prime, 139 

S. Ct. at 543.

As a fallback position, Lyft argues that even if workers who transport passengers can 

qualify for the exemption, the plaintiffs nonetheless don’t belong to a class of workers “engaged 

in foreign or interstate commerce.” This argument has a more solid foundation in the statute—

specifically, the words “engaged in.” Consider the FAA’s reference to contracts “involving”

commerce. 9 U.S.C. § 2. That phrasing “signals an intent to exercise Congress’ commerce power 

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to the full.” Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U.S. 265, 277 (1995). By contrast, the

phrase contained in the exemption for seamen, railroad employees and transportation workers—

“engaged in foreign or interstate commerce”—captures a narrower set of activities. See Circuit 

City, 532 U.S. at 118. This term of art evinces “[n]o similar concern for the impact of intrastate 

conduct on interstate commerce.” United States v. American Building Maintenance Industries, 

422 U.S. 271, 278 (1975). Rather, the term describes “only persons or activities within the flow 

of interstate commerce,” meaning “the practical, economic continuity in the generation of goods 

and services for interstate markets and their transport and distribution to the consumer.” Gulf Oil, 

419 U.S. at 195.

The narrower meaning of “engaged in foreign or interstate commerce” dictates that only 

those classes of workers that transport goods or passengers across state lines (or international

boundaries) can qualify for the exemption. For example, in United States v. Wright, 625 F.3d 583 

(9th Cir. 2010), a federal statute (since amended) criminalized the act of transporting child 

pornography “in interstate or foreign commerce.” Id. at 590. The Ninth Circuit held that the 

statute required “the material itself to cross state lines,” an interpretation that rested in part on 

Circuit City. Id. at 592–94. The rationale of Wright is equally applicable here: Section 1, which 

likewise addresses transportation in commerce, exempts only classes of workers engaged in 

transporting goods or people across state lines.

Lyft leads off with evidence relating to whether the plaintiffs in this case ever crossed 

state lines while driving for Lyft. Admittedly, some courts have placed substantial weight on the 

fact that the plaintiffs themselves performed only intrastate trips. See Magana v. DoorDash, Inc., 

343 F. Supp. 3d 891, 899 (N.D. Cal. 2018). Yet the question posed by the exemption is “not 

whether the individual worker actually engaged in interstate commerce, but whether the class of 

workers to which the complaining worker belonged engaged in interstate commerce.”

Bacashihua v. U.S. Postal Service, 859 F.2d 402, 405 (6th Cir. 1988). The plaintiffs’ personal 

exploits are relevant only to the extent they indicate the activities performed by the overall class.

If a class of workers (say, truckers) transports goods or people between states, a trucker who only 

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occasionally drives across state lines is still exempt from the FAA. See International 

Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 50 v. Kienstra Precast, LLC, 702 F.3d 954, 958 (7th 

Cir. 2012). Indeed, that remains true even if the trucker has never left his home state. See 

Bacashihua, 859 F.2d at 405. By the same token, however, the fact that some workers cross state 

lines in the course of their duties does not mean that the class of workers as a whole is engaged 

in interstate commerce. Take the Eleventh Circuit’s example of “a pizza delivery person who 

delivered pizza across a state line to a customer in a neighboring town.” Hill v. Rent-A-Center, 

Inc., 398 F.3d 1286, 1290 (11th Cir. 2005). Notwithstanding the fact that pizzas are crossing 

state lines, no pizza delivery person belongs to a “class of workers engaged in foreign or 

interstate commerce.” 9 U.S.C. § 1.

Applying those principles, Lyft drivers, as a class, are not engaged in interstate 

commerce. Their work predominantly entails intrastate trips, an activity that undoubtedly affects 

interstate commerce but is not interstate commerce itself. Although we can safely assume that

some drivers (especially those who live near state borders) regularly transport passengers across 

state lines, the company is in the general business of giving people rides, not the particular 

business of offering interstate transportation to passengers. Interstate trips that occur by 

happenstance of geography do not alter the intrastate transportation function performed by the 

class of workers. See Hill, 398 F.3d at 1290.

Nor does the fact that Lyft drivers frequently pick up and drop off people at airports and 

train stations mean that they are, as a class, “engaged in” interstate commerce. It would be one 

thing if Lyft’s focus were the service of transporting people to and from airports. For example, 

people who drive for an airport shuttle service might constitute a class of transportation workers 

engaged in interstate commerce—the interstate character of that nominally intrastate activity 

could be demonstrated by analogy to the transportation of goods. See, e.g., Baltimore & Ohio 

Southwestern Railroad Co. v. Burtch, 263 U.S. 540, 544 (1924) (discussing “the loading or 

unloading of an interstate shipment”); Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Co. v. Hancock, 253 

U.S. 284, 286 (1920) (first intrastate leg of interstate coal route); Rittmann v. Amazon.com, Inc., 

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383 F. Supp. 3d 1196, 1201 (W.D. Wash. 2019) (last intrastate leg of interstate package 

delivery). But Lyft is, in essence, a technologically advanced taxicab company, allowing people 

to “hail” rides from its drivers from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anywhere.

Speaking of taxicabs, the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 

U.S. 218 (1947), helps show why Lyft drivers are not, at least as a class, “engaged in” interstate 

commerce. That case involved allegations by the federal government that cab companies were 

engaged in various antitrust conspiracies to divide up the market for rides. One such conspiracy 

was an agreement between cab companies not to compete with one another for contracts with 

railroads to transport passengers between train stations in Chicago. As the Supreme Court 

explained, this sort of arrangement did involve the stream of interstate commerce, thereby 

implicating the federal antitrust laws, because the arrangement was directed at rail journeys and 

involved contracts with the railroads regarding portions those journeys: 

The transportation of such passengers and their luggage between 

stations in Chicago is clearly part of the stream of interstate 

commerce. When persons or goods move from a point of origin in 

one state to a point of destination in another, the fact that a part of 

that journey consists of transportation by an independent agency 

solely within the boundaries of one state does not make that portion 

of the trip any less interstate in character. . . . Here there is an alleged 

conspiracy to bring nearly all the Chicago taxicab companies under 

common control and to eliminate competition among them relative 

to contracts for supplying transportation for this transfer in the midst 

of interstate journeys.

Id. at 228–29. In contrast, another alleged antitrust violation was a conspiracy to limit the 

number of taxicab companies that could operate in Chicago overall. The federal government 

contended that this conspiracy also involved the stream of interstate commerce because taxis 

sometimes took people to and from rail stations or hotels. But this was not enough: 

None of [the taxicab companies] serves only railroad passengers, all 

of them being required to serve “every person” within the limits of 

Chicago. They have no contractual or other arrangement with the 

interstate railroads. Nor are their fares paid or collected as part of 

the railroad fares. In short, their relationship to interstate transit is 

only casual and incidental. . . . [W]hen local taxicabs merely convey 

interstate train passengers between their homes and the railroad 

station in the normal course of their independent local service, that 

service is not an integral part of interstate transportation.

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Id. at 231, 233. It’s difficult to see how a different analysis could apply to these modern-day taxi 

drivers. Like the drivers in Yellow Cab, Lyft drivers’ “relationship to interstate transit is only 

casual and incidental.” Id. at 231. The drivers thus lack the requisite “practical, economic 

continuity” with interstate air or rail transportation. Gulf Oil, 419 U.S. at 195; see Circuit City, 

532 U.S. at 117–18 (explaining that the term “engaged in commerce” bears a consistent meaning 

across statutory enactments).

3

C

Because the plaintiffs are not transportation workers, the parties’ arbitration agreement is 

subject to the FAA. The Terms of Service contains a broadly worded delegation provision that 

allocates most threshold issues to the arbitrator. Section 17(a) of the parties’ agreement states

that “[a]ll disputes concerning the arbitrability of a Claim (including disputes about the scope, 

applicability, enforceability, revocability or validity of the Arbitration Agreement) shall be 

decided by the arbitrator, except as expressly provided below.” Dkt. No. 19-2. The sole pertinent

exception to the delegation provision is found in the next subsection. Section 17(b) waives the 

plaintiffs’ right to pursue class, collective, or representative claims and further provides that the

“arbitrator may award declaratory or injunctive relief only in favor of the individual party 

seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party’s claims.”

That subsection also directs that “disputes regarding the scope, applicability, enforceability, 

revocability or validity of the Class Action Waiver may be resolved only by a civil court of 

competent jurisdiction and not by an arbitrator.” In addition, upon a “final judicial determination 

that the Class Action Waiver is unenforceable with respect to any Claim or any particular 

3 Some courts weigh eight non-exclusive factors to assess whether workers “with duties only 

tangentially related to movement of goods” nonetheless “are so closely related to interstate 

commerce” that they qualify as transportation workers. Lenz v. Yellow Transportation Inc., 431 

F.3d 348, 351–52 (8th Cir. 2005). In Lenz, for example, the Eighth Circuit concluded that a 

customer service representative for a trucking company is not exempt from the FAA. Id. at 352–

53. The plaintiffs urge the application of these factors here. Even assuming that the Lenz factors 

are relevant in this context, but see Kowalewski, 590 F. Supp. 2d at 482 n.3, there is no need for 

recourse to an indeterminate balancing test in light of the Supreme Court’s analysis in Yellow 

Cab.

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remedy for a Claim (such as a request for public injunctive relief), then that Claim or particular 

remedy (and only that Claim or particular remedy) shall be severed from any remaining claims 

and/or remedies and may be brought in a civil court of competent jurisdiction.”

There are three important conclusions to draw from these densely worded provisions. 

First, section 17(a) clearly and unmistakably delegates threshold questions of arbitrability to the 

arbitrator as a general matter. See Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer & White Sales, Inc., 139 S. Ct. 

524, 530 (2019). Second, section 17(b) withdraws (or at the very least muddies) a portion of that 

delegation with respect to the enforceability of the waiver of non-individualized relief, including 

class actions and public injunctions. And third, section 17(b) provides that if the waiver is 

unenforceable as to a particular claim or remedy, that claim or remedy—and only that claim or 

remedy—is not arbitrable.

Under this arbitration agreement’s division of labor, the arbitrator handles everything 

related to individualized relief. The court’s role is deciding the enforceability of the waiver of 

non-individualized relief and then retaining whatever (if anything) withstands the across-theboard waiver. Supreme Court precedent makes clear that the class action waiver is enforceable.

Epic Systems, 138 S. Ct. at 1621; AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333, 344 (2011).

But the request for a public injunction is a different story. Just last year, the Ninth Circuit held 

that the FAA does not preempt California’s rule that waivers of the right to request a public 

injunction are contrary to public policy and invalid under state law. Blair, 929 F.3d at 830–31; 

see McGill, 2 Cal. 5th at 961 (citing Cal. Civ. Code § 3513). The arbitration agreement’s

prohibition on public injunctions is therefore unenforceable. See 9 U.S.C. § 2.

Per the terms of the arbitration agreement, the request for a public injunction is “severed 

from any remaining claims and/or remedies and may be brought in a civil court of competent 

jurisdiction.” Terms of Service § 17(b). This type of claim-splitting and remedy-splitting may be 

inefficient and unusual, but it’s permitted so long as the parties have agreed to that course of 

action. See Blair, 928 F.3d at 831. After all, arbitration is “strictly a matter of consent”—not 

necessarily a matter of common sense. Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela, 139 S. Ct. 1407, 1415 (2019).

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In sum, Lyft’s motion to compel is granted as to the plaintiffs’ claims for individualized 

relief. Although Lyft requested a stay in the event arbitration is compelled, see 9 U.S.C. § 3, the 

Court exercises its discretion to dismiss the arbitrable claims without prejudice, see 

Johnmohammadi v. Bloomingdale’s, Inc., 755 F.3d 1072, 1073–74 (9th Cir. 2014). The class 

allegations are stricken because the plaintiffs waived the right to represent a class in any forum. 

And Lyft’s motion to compel the request for a public injunction to arbitration is denied, because 

although the plaintiffs purported to waive the right to seek such relief, this waiver is invalid, and 

the parties agreed that in the event the waiver is invalid, the claim is for a court (not an arbitrator) 

to decide.

III

The plaintiffs thus have one live claim for relief in this Court: their request for a public 

injunction based on Lyft’s denial of paid sick leave. The question is whether they have standing 

in federal court to seek such relief. The plaintiffs clearly would have standing to assert claims for 

paid sick leave premised on their own injuries, had they not agreed to arbitrate their entitlement 

to individualized relief. And the plaintiffs clearly would have standing to assert claims for sick 

leave on behalf of a class of Lyft drivers, had they not waived the right to seek class relief. Yet 

the plaintiffs “must demonstrate standing separately for each form of relief sought.” Friends of 

the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 185 (2000). Given 

the decision on Lyft’s motion to compel arbitration and the contract’s remedy-splitting provision, 

the only remedy that the plaintiffs can seek in this lawsuit is a public injunction.

The public injunction is a creature of California law that “has the primary purpose and 

effect of prohibiting unlawful acts that threaten future injury to the general public.” McGill, 2 

Cal. 5th at 951. Unlike a class action, the plaintiff sues in an individual capacity, not a 

representative capacity. See id. at 959–60. Yet California law does not appear to require a 

plaintiff seeking a public injunction to demonstrate any type of likely future injury, let alone a

“concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent” injury. Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, 

568 U.S. 398, 409 (2013). The only requirement appears to be that the plaintiff show the past 

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injury of “lost money or property as a result of the unfair competition.” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 

§ 17204. And the public injunction need not—indeed, is not supposed to—redress a plaintiffspecific injury. The public injunction benefits the plaintiff, “if at all, only by virtue of being a 

member of the public.” Broughton v. Cigna Healthplans of California, 21 Cal. 4th 1066, 1080 

n.5 (1999). Put differently, “public injunctions benefit ‘the public directly by the elimination of 

deceptive practices,’ but do not otherwise benefit the plaintiff, who ‘has already been injured, 

allegedly, by such practices and is aware of them.’” Blair, 928 F.3d at 824 (brackets omitted) 

(quoting McGill, 2 Cal. 5th at 955).

In light of this case’s unusual posture, where the plaintiffs agreed to arbitrate the 

availability of remedies specific to their injuries and waived the right to pursue any type of class 

remedy, the question presented is whether the plaintiffs can invoke federal-court jurisdiction to 

adjudicate only a request for a public injunction. The answer is no. As explained above, the 

purpose of a public injunction “is not to resolve a private dispute but to remedy a public wrong.” 

Broughton, 21 Cal. 4th at 1080. But the judicial power under Article III “exists only to redress or 

otherwise to protect against injury to the complaining party, even though the court’s judgment 

may benefit others collaterally.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499 (1975). Thus, even if state 

law authorizes a plaintiff to seek a public injunction on behalf of the general public, that 

authorization, standing alone, does not confer standing in federal court. See Hollingsworth v. 

Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 715 (2013); see also McGovern v. U.S. Bank N.A., 362 F. Supp. 3d 850, 

858 (S.D. Cal. 2019). Plaintiffs may sometimes request public injunctive relief in the course of 

combating an actual and imminent threat of future harm to themselves. See Davidson v. 

Kimberly-Clark Corp., 889 F.3d 956, 969–70 (9th Cir. 2018). But they may not invoke state law 

to use the federal courts merely to pursue a generalized public grievance. “No matter its reasons, 

the fact that a State thinks a private party should have standing to seek relief for a generalized 

grievance cannot override” the baseline requirements of Article III. Hollingsworth, 570 U.S. at 

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715; cf. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1549 (2016).4

Analogously, the Supreme Court has held that a plaintiff cannot continue to seek broad 

injunctive relief against a policy after settling the claims related to his threatened injury. 

Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488, 494 (2009). That holding would seem to extend 

to a situation in which the party agreed to arbitrate claims based on his own injuries. In both 

instances, the plaintiffs agreed not to litigate claims for individualized relief but have pressed on 

with a challenge to the overall policy. See also Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 

66, 73–74 (2013) (no personal stake in outcome of collective action once individual claim is 

moot). The fact that one plaintiff settled his claim and the other plaintiff must arbitrate his claim

is immaterial to whether a federal court can adjudicate a standalone “abstract” request for an 

injunction “apart from any concrete application” of the challenged policy “that threatens 

imminent harm” to the plaintiffs. Summers, 555 U.S. at 494.

Of course, state courts are free to experiment with remedies that federal courts may not 

entertain. City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 113 (1983). So depending on the breadth of 

state standing rules, the plaintiffs’ lack of standing in federal court does not prevent California

courts from hearing requests for public injunctions. See Zachary D. Clopton, Procedural 

Retrenchment and the States, 106 Cal. L. Rev. 411, 436–38 (2018). This case was originally filed 

in state court but removed by Lyft to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, a 

removal made possible only by the plaintiffs’ decision to file the lawsuit as a proposed class 

action despite their waiver of the right to do so. Under these circumstances, with the only live 

claim seeking a single remedy that the plaintiffs lack standing to pursue in federal court, it is 

appropriate to remand the matter to state court. See Davidson, 889 F.3d at 970 n.6; Polo v. 

Innoventions International, LLC, 883 F.3d 1193, 1196–97 (9th Cir. 2016); see also Machlan v. 

4 A request for a public injunction involves a very different standing analysis from a lawsuit 

brought by a private citizen under the federal False Claims Act or California’s Private Attorneys

General Act. There, the government has effectively assigned its claim to the private citizen 

pursuant to a traditionally recognized agency relationship, which creates a “case” or 

“controversy” for purposes of Article III. See Hollingsworth, 570 U.S. at 710–14; Vermont 

Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773–74 (2000).

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Procter & Gamble Co., 77 F. Supp. 3d 954, 961 (N.D. Cal. 2015).

Lyft argues that the plaintiffs’ claim is obviously for private injunctive relief, not public 

injunctive relief. If that were true, Ninth Circuit precedent suggests that the Court could simply

dismiss the remaining claim on the ground that remand would be futile. See Bell v. Kellogg, 922 

F.2d 1418, 1425 (9th Cir. 1991). But the outcome in state court on remand is not foreordained, 

even assuming that review for futility remains appropriate. See Polo, 883 F.3d at 1198. To be 

sure, the plaintiffs’ decision to label their claim as one for a “public injunction” seems dubious 

because the proposed remedy runs directly to the plaintiffs and similarly situated drivers, with 

the public benefiting only collaterally from the provision of paid sick leave. See Clifford v. Quest 

Software Inc., 38 Cal. App. 5th 745, 753 (2019). Indeed, the plaintiffs appear to conflate the 

magnitude of the public interest in a private injunction with the manner in which a public 

injunction benefits the general population in equal shares (for example, by enjoining false 

advertising or deceptive labeling that could trick any member of the public). That being said, 

California case law has not drawn the brightest of lines between a “private injunction” and a 

“public injunction,” so remand would not be an exercise in futility. The state court will consider 

the matter in the first instance.

* * *

Lyft’s motion to compel arbitration is granted as to the plaintiffs’ claims for 

individualized relief. The class allegations are stricken. The remaining claim for a public 

injunction is remanded to San Francisco Superior Court.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 7, 2020

______________________________________

VINCE CHHABRIA

United States District Judge

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