Court Opinion

ID: 9912172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-21 19:02:45.292919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:52:38.155135
License: Public Domain

Filed 12/21/23 Zamano v. ISS Facility Services CA2/6
     NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                         DIVISION SIX

JUAN ZAMANO,                                                            2d Crim. No. B323210
                                                                   (Super. Ct. No. 56-2020-00547965)
     Plaintiff and Respondent,                                             (Ventura County)

v.

ISS FACILITY SERVICES, INC.

     Defendant and Appellant.

      ISS Facility Services, Inc. (ISS) appeals an order denying
its motion to compel arbitration of Juan Zamano’s claims for civil
penalties pursuant to the California Labor Code Private
Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA). (Lab. Code, § 2698 et
seq.)1 We affirm.

         1 All statutory references are to the Labor Code unless

otherwise stated.
            FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
       Zamano was employed by ISS from October 26, 2018, to
March 28, 2019. ISS is a nationwide janitorial company and
Zamano worked as a custodian at a Thousand Oaks business.
       At the inception of his employment, Zamano executed a
three-page “Mutual Agreement to Arbitrate Claims” (Agreement)
drafted by ISS. The Agreement provided that the Federal
Arbitration Act (FAA) governed the agreement. The Agreement
also stated that, “[e]xcept as otherwise provided in this
Agreement,” the Agreement applied to any dispute between the
parties: “All disputes covered by this Agreement between
EMPLOYEE and EMPLOYER shall be decided by an arbitrator
through arbitration and not by way of court or jury trial.”
(Boldface omitted.)
       In relevant part, section 6 of the Agreement provided:
       “EMPLOYER and EMPLOYEE also hereby waive any right
for any dispute to be brought, heard, decided or arbitrated as a
representative action (“Representative Action Waiver”).
However, this Representative Action Waiver may be severed if it
would otherwise render this Agreement unenforceable in any
action brought under a private attorneys general law, and
following severance the representative action may be brought in
a court of law.”
       In relevant part, section 14 generally provided: “[I]n the
event any portion of this Agreement is deemed unenforceable, the
unenforceable provision will be severed from the Agreement and
the remainder of this Agreement will be enforceable.”
       On April 24, 2020, Zamano sued ISS and several other
related defendants as a representative of the State of California,
asserting a single cause of action pursuant to PAGA alleging

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Labor Code violations by defendants against Zamano and other
aggrieved ISS employees.
       ISS filed a motion to compel arbitration of Zamano’s claims
pursuant to the Agreement to arbitrate all claims arising from
their employment relationship. ISS asserted that Viking River
Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. – [213 L.Ed.2d 179]
(Viking River) required arbitration of Zamano’s individual PAGA
claims for Labor Code violations against him, and dismissal of
the non-individual PAGA claims for violations against other
employees for lack of PAGA standing. (Id. at p. – [213 L.Ed.2d
179, 201] [PAGA plaintiff “lacks statutory standing to continue to
maintain her non-individual claims in court, and the correct
course is to dismiss her remaining claims”].)
       The trial court denied ISS’s motion to compel arbitration
and to strike the non-individual PAGA claims. The court decided
that the Agreement contained an illegal representative action
waiver because it provided “a total ban” on the right to have any
dispute decided or heard as a representative action, expressly
including a PAGA claim. (Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los
Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348, 360, 384 (Iskanian),
overruled in part by Viking River, supra, 596 U.S. – [213 L.Ed.2d
at p. 200] [“[A]n arbitration agreement requiring an employee as
a condition of employment to give up the right to bring
representative PAGA actions in any forum is contrary to public
policy” and “unenforceable as a matter of state law”].) Moreover,
the court decided that the express terms of the Agreement
required that the waiver provision be severed. Following
severance, the Agreement expressly permitted any representative
action to be brought “in a court of law.”

                                3
      ISS appeals and contends that the trial court failed to
enforce the plain terms of the Agreement, the mutual intent of
the parties, and the holding of Viking River.
      Following the filing of ISS’s opening brief and Zamano’s
responding brief, the California Supreme Court decided Adolph v.
Uber Technologies, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 1104, 1114, holding
that where a plaintiff has brought a PAGA action consisting of
individual and non-individual claims, an order compelling
arbitration of the individual claims does not strip the plaintiff of
standing as an aggrieved employee to litigate claims (non-
individual claims) on behalf of other employees pursuant to
PAGA. ISS concedes that Adolph applies to its argument that
Zamano lacks standing to bring an action for non-individual
claims.
                           DISCUSSION
      ISS contends that the trial court erred by denying ISS’s
motion to compel arbitration of Zamamo’s individual PAGA
claim. In part, ISS relies upon the principle that any doubts
concerning the scope of arbitrable issues should be resolved in
favor of arbitration. (Segal v. Silberstein (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th
627, 633 [“Because of California’s public policy that generally
favors arbitration, we will uphold arbitration unless we can say
with assurance that an arbitration clause cannot reasonably be
interpreted to cover a dispute or otherwise cannot be enforced”].)
      Where the trial court’s order denying a motion to compel
arbitration rests solely on an issue of law, we review that decision
de novo. (Seifu v. Lyft, Inc. (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 1129, 1136.)
      The trial court was correct that the PAGA waiver in the
Agreement is not enforceable. (Iskanian, supra, 59 Cal.4th 348,
360, 384.) An employee’s right to bring a PAGA action is not

                                 4
waivable. (Id. at pp. 382, 384.) The FAA does not preempt state
law in that respect because the “FAA’s goal of promoting
arbitration as a means of private dispute resolution does not
preclude our Legislature from deputizing employees to prosecute
Labor Code violations on the state’s behalf.” (Id. at p. 360.)
       We next consider the plain meaning and application of the
severance clause. Section 6 of the Agreement provided: “[T]his
Representative Action Waiver may be severed if it would
otherwise render this Agreement unenforceable in any action
brought under a private attorneys general law, and following
severance the representative action may be brought in a court of
law.”
       Contract language stating “representative actions” covers
representative actions brought under PAGA. “ ‘[E]very PAGA
action, whether seeking penalties for Labor Code violations as to
only one aggrieved employee – the plaintiff bringing the action –
or as to other employees as well, is a representative action on
behalf of the state.’ ” (Iskanian, supra, 59 Cal.4th 348, 387,
italics omitted.) It is thus well settled and recognized that a
PAGA claim is a representative action brought on behalf of the
state to recover civil penalties. (Viking River, supra, 596 U.S. –
[213 L.Ed.2d 179, 191]; Kim v Reins International California, Inc.
(2020) 9 Cal.5th 73, 81.)
       “Representative action” in section 6 of the Agreement, by
its express terms, refers to “any action brought under a private
attorneys general law.” According to the Agreement, following
severance for an invalid waiver of the right to bring a PAGA
action, the “representative action may be brought in a court of
law.” The Agreement between Zamano and ISS was executed

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four years after Iskanian, a 2014 decision, and we assume the
Agreement followed Iskanian’s holding.
       By contrast, Viking River’s severability clause provided
that if the representative waiver provision was invalid in some
respect, any “ ‘portion’ ” of the waiver that remained valid must
still be “ ‘enforced in arbitration.’ ” (Viking River, supra, 596 U.S.
– [213 L.Ed.2d 179, 200].) “Based on this clause, Viking was
entitled to enforce the agreement insofar as it mandated
arbitration of [plaintiff’s] individual PAGA claim.” (Ibid.)
       The specific contract language in section 6 controls more
general clauses in the Agreement. (Carbajal v. CWPSC, Inc.
(2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 227, 251.) The Agreement itself
recognizes this principle by language in section 1 that, “[e]xcept
as otherwise provided in this Agreement, this Agreement applies
to any dispute [between Zamano and ISS].” For this reason, we
apply the section 6 severability clause over the more general
section 14 severability clause. We also reject any argument that
the more general severability clause requires severance of the
specific section 6 severability clause.
                             DISPOSITION
       The order is affirmed. Zamano shall recover costs on
appeal.
       NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

                                      GILBERT, P. J.
We concur:

             YEGAN, J.                BALTODANO, J.

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                   Benjamin F. Coats, Judge

               Superior Court County of Ventura

               ______________________________

      Armstrong Teasdale, Julie W. O’Dell and Drake A. Mirsch
for Defendant and Appellant.
      Lavi & Ebrahimian, Joseph Lavi, Jordan D. Bello and
Danielle E. Montero for Plaintiff and Respondent

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