Court Opinion

ID: 9620244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:40:10.378446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:09:08.753485
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.
I dissent.
In this case the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (the DLSE) has sued a public entity under the Tort Claims Act on behalf of workers who were injured when the public entity failed to perform its mandatory duties to enforce the prevailing wage law (Lab. Code, § 1720 et seq.) on a public works contract performed by a private contractor. The majority holds that the DLSE cannot recover unpaid wages on behalf of the workers because the injury here is not an injury to ‘the kind of interest[] . . . protected by the courts in actions between private persons.” But the majority’s assumption that an injury to an employee’s interest in receiving unpaid wages is not an injury to an interest protected in actions between private persons is transparently false.
A worker who is paid less than the prevailing wage by a private contractor on a public works project has the right to prosecute a claim against that contractor for the unpaid wages due under law. The worker can proceed against, the contractor in an action to which no public entity need be a party—an “action between private persons.” The injury when a worker brings an action against a contractor for prevailing wages is identical to the injury when, as here, the DLSE, as the assignee of the worker, brings an action against the public entity for its failure to meet its mandatory duty to enforce the prevailing wage.
Apparently disturbed by the prospect that the public entity in this case may be liable for failing to comply with the prevailing wage law it is charged with enforcing, the majority grants it an escape from liability under the Tort Claims Act on the flimsiest of legal pretexts.
I
As we have recently noted in the companion to this case, Lusardi Construction Co. v. Aubry (1992) 1 Cal.4th 976, 981 [4 Cal.Rptr.2d 837, 824 P.2d *973643] (Lusardi), the prevailing wage law governs wages and other conditions of employment on public works, which includes any construction work “done under contract and paid for in whole or in part out of public funds . . . (Lab. Code, § 1720, subd. (a).) All workers employed on public works costing more than $1,000 must be paid not less than the general prevailing wage determined by the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations. (Lab. Code, §§ 1770, 1771 & 1774.) The public entity awarding a public works contract, “or otherwise undertaking any public work,” is required to obtain the prevailing wage rate from the Director and to provide notice of the rates in its call for bids, bid specifications, and contract, either by reciting the rates themselves or by specifying that the rates are on file in its office. (Lab. Code, §§ 1773, 1773.2.)
The prevailing wage law also requires the public entity to “take cognizance of violations [of the prevailing wage law] committed in the course of the execution of the contract,” withhold amounts due as a result of underpayments of the prevailing wage from payments to the contractor, notify the DLSE of violations of the prevailing wage law, and assist the DLSE in court actions to recover the prevailing wage from contractors who have failed to pay the amounts due under the law. (Lab. Code, §§ 1726, 1727 & 1775.)
In this case, Tri-City Hospital District (the District), a public entity, in order to expand its hospital facilities entered into a written agreement with Imperial Municipal Services Group, Inc. (Imperial) under which Imperial would “sell” the completed construction project to the District. Imperial then appointed the District as its “agent” for all purposes on the construction project. The District, purportedly acting as agent for Imperial, then hired a private contractor, Lusardi Construction Co., to construct the project, without entering into the statutorily required stipulations that the contractor pay its employees the prevailing wage rates. (See Lusardi, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 981-982.)
When this arrangement came to the attention of the DLSE, it filed an action against the District to recover the prevailing wages that were not paid as a result of the District’s failure to comply with its obligations under the prevailing wage law.1 Although the Labor Code authorizes actions by the DLSE on behalf of workers to collect wages (Lab. Code, § 98.3), it does not expressly establish a cause of action by the DLSE against an awarding body. Thus, in its second amended cross-complaint the DLSE sought to state a *974cause of action against the District for breach of a mandatory duty under Government Code section 815.6, a part of the Tort Claims Act.2
II
The majority holds that the District is not liable under Government Code section 815.6 because under that statute there is liability only for an “injury” as defined in Government Code section 810.8. That provision defines “injury” in relevant part as harm “to a person ... of such nature that it would be actionable if inflicted by a private person.”
The majority concludes that a worker’s right to be paid the prevailing wage is not an interest protected in actions between private persons. Its holding is based on the Law Revision Commission Comment to Government Code section 810.8. That comment states that the definition of “injury” in section 810.8 was intended to encompass only “injuries to the kind of interests that have been protected by the courts in actions between private persons.” (Cal. Law Revision Com. com., Deering’s Ann. Gov. Code, § 810.8 (1982 ed.) p. 125.) The majority deduces that a worker’s right to be paid a prevailing wage on a public works project is not an interest protected in actions between private persons, and therefore is not enforceable by means of an action under Government Code section 815.6, because the injury “is one which by its very nature could not exist in an action between private persons; if the defendant awarding body were not a public entity, there would be no injury.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 968.)
The majority is wrong. The DLSE here seeks recovery of the unpaid prevailing wages that the workers were statutorily entitled to receive for their labor on the District’s public works project. This same injury—the workers’ monetary loss from denial of prevailing wages—is actionable in a suit between private persons—namely, a suit by a worker against the private contractor on the public works project. The soundness of this conclusion, which reveals the basic flaw in the majority’s reasoning, becomes glaringly apparent from even a brief review of the pertinent law.
We held in Lusardi, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pages 986-988, that the obligation of a contractor to pay the prevailing wage on a public works project arises *975separately from statute and from contract. The Legislature has recognized that individuals who are owed unpaid wages by employers have “valid and enforceable” claims against those employers that they may pursue independently or that the DLSE may pursue on their behalf. (Lab. Code, § 98.3, subd. (a).3) And, as we noted in Lusardi, the legislative history of the prevailing wage law shows that the Legislature intended remedies against the contractor for violation of the prevailing wage law to be cumulative and nonexclusive. (Lusardi, supra, 1 Cal.4th at p. 988, fn. 3.)
Thus, there can be no legitimate disagreement that a worker who is owed unpaid wages because a public works contractor failed to adhere to the statutory and contractual obligation to pay not less than the prevailing wage has a right of action against the contractor. The injury suffered in that situation is the same injury at issue in this case, in which the DLSE, the assignee of the workers as a matter of law (Lab. Code, §§ 96.7, 98.3), seeks recovery of unpaid wages on behalf of workers against a public entity that failed to comply with its obligations to assist in the enforcement of the prevailing wage law.
The majority attempts to obfuscate this matter by asserting that “a worker’s action against an employer for unpaid statutorily required wages sounds in contract” and is, therefore, outside tiie scope of the Tort Claims Act. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 969, fn. 5.) There are two things wrong with this assertion. It is untrue, and it is irrelevant.
The majority’s claim is untrue because an action against a contractor for the payment of statutorily required wages is not dependent on a contractual agreement to pay statutorily required wages. We so held in Lusardi, supra, 1 Cal.4th 976, in the context of an action between a contractor and the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations. The same is true when a worker sues a contractor directly.
An example demonstrates the error of the majority’s claim. An employer and an employee agree that the employee will work for the employer at a wage less than the prevailing wage. The employee then discovers that the wage the employee has agreed to is less than that required by statute. If the employee could sue only for breach of contract, the employee would have no *976right of action, because the employer did not violate the contract. The employer, however, did violate the statute by paying less than the prevailing wage. In that situation, the employee has a statutory right of action. (Lab. Code, § 1194, subd. (a).4) The action is statutory in nature, and not contractual, because “ ‘the liability would not exist but for the statute, and the obligation is created by law in the absence of an agreement.’ ” (Aubry v. Goldhor (1988) 201 Cal.App.3d 399, 404 [247 Cal.Rptr. 205].)
Moreover, it is entirely irrelevant to this case whether a worker’s action against a contractor for unpaid statutorily required wages “sounds in contract” or not. The determinative question is whether the injury alleged here is an injury “to the kind of interests that have been protected by the courts in actions between private persons.” And here the injury—to the interest of workers on public works projects in receiving the prevailing wage guaranteed by the Labor Code—is the same no matter whether the cause of action is labeled contractual or statutory.
The majority’s foundational assumption in this case—that the injury suffered when a public entity fails to fulfill its mandatory duty to assure that a contractor pays not less than the prevailing wage to workers on a public work is not an injury to “the kind of interest protected in actions between private persons”—is, therefore, false.
III
The District advances several other grounds on which it asserts that its demurrer to the DLSE’s complaint was properly sustained. I have reviewed those arguments, and have determined that they lack merit. But because the majority does not discuss additional arguments made by the District, I decline to address them here.5
*977I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Mosk, J., concurred.

Nominally, the cross-complainant in this action is Lloyd W. Aubry, Jr., chief of the DLSE and Labor Commissioner. For convenience, the cross-complainant is referred to as “the DLSE” in this opinion.

Govermnent Code section 815.6 provides: “Where a public entity is under a mandatory duty imposed by an enactment that is designed to protect against the risk of a particular kind of injury, the public entity is liable for an injury of that kind proximately caused by its failure to discharge the duty unless the public entity establishes that it exercised reasonable diligence to discharge the duty.”

Labor Code section 98.3, subdivision (a) provides:
“The Labor Commissioner may prosecute all actions for the collection of wages, penalties, and demands of persons who in the judgment of the Labor Commissioner are financially unable to employ counsel and the Labor Commissioner believes have claims which are valid and enforceable.” Thus, the Legislature unmistakably contemplated that those persons who are able to employ counsel may directly prosecute actions for the collection of wages.

Labor Code section 1194, subdivision (a) provides: “Notwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage, any employee receiving less than the legal minimum wage or the legal overtime compensation applicable to the employee is entitled to recover in a civil action the unpaid balance of the full amount of this minimum wage or overtime compensation, including interest thereon, reasonable attorney’s fees, and costs of suit.”

I note, however, that the majority correctly concludes that the DLSB is not authorized to seek recovery under the Tort Claims Act of statutory penalties a contractor would be required to pay under Labor Code section 1775. Because a worker injured by a contractor’s failure to pay the prevailing wage could not recover statutory penalties in addition to unpaid wages in an action against the contractor, the DLSB, acting on the worker’s behalf under the Tort Claims Act, cannot recover the penalties either. (Gov. Code, § 815.6.)