Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1573_8p6h.pdf
Page Number: 14

10 

VIKING RIVER CRUISES, INC. v. MORIANA 

Opinion of the Court 

Viking contends that these decisions require enforcement
of contractual provisions waiving the right to bring PAGA
actions because PAGA creates a form of class or collective 
proceeding.  If  this  is  correct,  Iskanian’s  prohibition  on
PAGA waivers presents parties with the same impermissi-
ble choice as the rules we have invalidated in our decisions 
concerning class- and collective-action waivers: Either arbi-
trate disputes using a form of class procedure, or do not ar-
bitrate at all. 

Moriana  offers  a  very  different  characterization  of  the 
statute.  As she sees it, any conflict between Iskanian and 
the  FAA  is  illusory  because  PAGA  creates  nothing  more
than a substantive cause of action.  The only thing that is 
distinctive about PAGA, she supposes, is that it allows em-
ployee  plaintiffs  to  increase  the  available  penalties  that 
may be awarded in an action by proving additional predi-
cate violations of the Labor Code.  But that does not make 
a PAGA action a class action, because those violations are 
not  distinct  claims  belonging  to  distinct  individuals.    In-
stead,  they  are  predicates  for  expanded  liability  under  a 
single  cause  of  action.   In  Moriana’s  view,  that  means  Is-
kanian invalidates waivers of substantive rights, and does 
not  purport  to  invalidate  anything  that  can  meaningfully 
be described as an “arbitration agreement.”4 

—————— 

4 Moriana declines to defend one of the Iskanian court’s own bases for 
holding that the FAA does not mandate enforcement of PAGA waivers. 
The Iskanian court reasoned that a PAGA action lies outside the FAA’s 
coverage entirely because §2 is limited to controversies “arising out of ” 
the contract between the parties, 9 U. S. C. §2 (emphasis added), and a 
PAGA  action  “is  not  a  dispute  between  an  employer  and  an  employee 
arising out of their contractual relationship,” but “a dispute between an
employer and the state.”  Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC, 59 
Cal. 4th 348, 387, 327 P. 3d 129, 151 (2014).  We reject this argument.
Although the terms of §2 limit the FAA’s enforcement mandate to agree-
ments to arbitrate controversies that “arise out of ” the parties’ contrac-
tual relationship, disputes resolved in PAGA actions satisfy this require-
ment.  The contractual relationship between the parties is a but-for cause