Opinion ID: 3053944
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Constraints

Text: Oracle argues that California’s Labor Code may not be applied to Plaintiffs’ work in California without violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Dormant Commerce Clause. Neither argument has merit.
[13] We apply the same test under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Full Faith and Credit Clause to determine whether a state’s law may be applied in a particular case. “[F]or a State’s substantive law to be selected in a constitutionally permissible manner, that State must have a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair.” Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, 472 U.S. 797, 818 (1985). It is a rare case SULLIVAN v. ORACLE CORP. 15275 in which a state court is constitutionally forbidden to apply its own state’s law. Compare Phillips, 472 U.S. 797 (holding that Kansas court may not apply Kansas prejudgment interest rules to all of the natural gas leases at issue in a class action involving royalties from 6,232 leases, of which only four were located in Kansas, and 14,477 royalty owners, of whom only 504 were Kansas residents) with Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S. 302 (1981) (holding that Minnesota court may apply Minnesota rule permitting “stacking” of motorcycle insurance policies because plaintiff now lived in Minnesota and her deceased spouse had worked in Minnesota, even though plaintiff had lived in Wisconsin at the time of the accident, and even though decedent had lived in Wisconsin, had taken out the insurance policies in Wisconsin, and had been killed in Wisconsin). [14] The contacts creating California interests are clearly sufficient to permit the application of California’s Labor Code in this case. The employer, Oracle, has its headquarters and principal place of business in California; the decision to classify Plaintiffs as teachers and to deny them overtime pay was made in California; and the work in question was performed in California.
[15] If a statute “regulates even-handedly to effectuate a legitimate local public interest, and its effects on interstate commerce are only incidental, it will be upheld unless the burden imposed on such commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137, 142 (1970). California has chosen to apply its Labor Code equally to work performed in California, whether that work is performed by California residents or by out-of-state residents. There is no plausible Dormant Commerce Clause argument when California has chosen to treat out-of-state residents equally with its own. 15276 SULLIVAN v. ORACLE CORP.