Conference Case Management

Cal. Super. - 6th Dist.July 18, 2017

1 2 3 4 Larry W. Lee, Esq. SBN 228175 DIVERSITY LAW GROUP, P.C. 515 S. Figueroa St., Suite 1250 Los Angeles, CA 90071 Telephone: (213) 488-6555 Facsimile: (213) 488-6554 5 Attorneys for Plaintiff 6 ***ADDITIONAL COUNSEL LISTED ON NEXT PAGE 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Spencer C. Skeen, CA Bar No. 182216 spencer.skeen@ogletree.com Marlene M. Moffitt, Bar No. 223658 marlene.moffitt@ogletree.com Tim L. Johnson, CA Bar No. 265794 tim.johnson@ogletree.com OGLETREE DEAKINS NASH SMOAK & STEWART, P.C. 4370 La Jolla Village Drive, Suite 990 San Diego, CA 92122 Telephone: 858.652-3100 Facsimile: 858.652.3101 14 Attorneys for Defendant INTER-CON SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC. 15 16 17 SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA 18 SHAILENDRA SINGH, as an individual and 19 on behalf of all others similarly situated, 20 21 vs. Plaintiffs, 22 INTER-CON SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC., 23 a Corporation, and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive, 24 25 26 27 28 Defendants. Case No. 17CV313202 Assigned for All Purposes to Honorable Brian C. Walsh in Department 1 JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT Date: Time: Dept.: June 22, 2018 10:00 a.m. 1 JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT Electronically Filed by Superior Court of CA, County of Santa Clara, on 6/15/2018 4:00 PM Reviewed By: R. Walker Case #17CV313202 Envelope: 1630710 17CV313202 Santa Clara - Civil 1 ADDITIONAL COUNSEL 2 Dennis S. Hyun (State Bar No. 224240) HYUN LEGAL, APC 3 515 S. Figueroa St., Suite 1250 4 Los Angeles, CA 90071 (213) 488-6555 5 (213) 488-6554 facsimile 6 Edward W. Choi, State Bar No. 211334 7 Paul M. Yi, Esq. SBN 207867 LAW OFFICES OF CHOI & ASSOCIATES, APLC 8 515 S. Figueroa St. Suite 1250 Los Angeles, CA 90010 9 Telephone: (213) 381-1515 10 Facsimile: (213) 465-4885 11 William L. Marder, Esq. (SSN 170131) POLARIS LAW GROUP 12 501 San Benito Street, Suite 200 13 Hollister, CA 95023 Telephone: (831) 531-4214 14 Facsimile: (831) 634-0333 15 Attorneys for Plaintiff 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 JOINTFURTHERSTATUSCONFERENCESTATEMENT 1 Plaintiff SHAILENDRA SINGH ("Plaintiff') and Defendant INTER-CON SECURITY 2 SYSTEMS, INC. ("Defendant") (Plaintiff and Defendant are collectively referred to as the 3 "Parties"), by and through their undersigned counsel of record, submit this Joint Further Status 4 Conference Statement. 5 I. 6 PLAINTIFF'S UPDATE This is a P AGA action. The Parties have filed cross-discovery motions. As set forth in 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Plaintiffs Motion to Compel and opposition to Defendant's Motion for a Protective Order, Defendant has refused to provide discovery beyond the location where Plaintiff worked and/or as to other aggrieved employees. Plaintiff has fully briefed this issue. Without belaboring the point, Plaintiff believes that this violates the California Supreme Court's decision in Williams v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. 5th 531, 550 (20 17), which held that a PAGA plaintiff is entitled to statewide discovery as to violations committed against other aggrieved employees. The Parties' counsel discussed this issue with the Court at the Informal Discovery Conference held on February 20, 2018. This Court informed Parties' counsel that the Court would 15 16 17 follow Williams. As for Defendant's merit-based argument that Plaintiff cannot assert a Labor Code§ 201.3 18 claim because he worked at the CHP for 90 days, this argument is incorrect, as fully briefed by 19 Plaintiff. Security guards are not subject to the 90-day exemption from Section 201.3 's weekly 20 wage payment requirement. See Labor Code§ 201.3(b)(l)(B). 21 Moreover, as set forth in Plaintiffs Notice ofNew Authority, the Sixth District Court of 22 Appeal has made clear that Plaintiff may assert claims on behalf of all aggrieved employees, 23 regardless of whether the employee herself is actually aggrieved. Huff v. Securitas Security Serv. 24 USA, Inc., Case No. H042852 (Cal. Ct. App. 6th Dist. May 23, 2018) (attached hereto as Exhibit 25 "A"). In Huff, the Court of Appeal held that the security guard plaintiff may pursue claims for 26 violation of the prior version of Labor Code§ 201.3, even though the plaintiff worked for the client 27 90 days and, therefore, was not aggrieved himself. Thus, Huff supports Plaintiffs right to assert the 28 Labor Code§ 201.3 claim on behalf of all aggrieved employees, regardless of whether he worked fo 3 JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT 1 the CHP for 90 consecutive days. 2 It should be noted that Defendant has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment repeating the 3 similar arguments as stated in its opposition to Plaintiffs Motion to Compel and in its Motion for 4 Summary Judgment. Defendant, however, now also argues that it is not a temporary services 5 employer. This Court advised the Parties' counsel at the IDC that the Court would permit Plaintiff 6 to conduct discovery to oppose Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment pursuant to California 7 Code of Civil Procedure§ 437c(h). Defendant has now filed this Motion for Summary Judgment 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 without affording Plaintiff the opportunity to conduct any discovery. As such, Plaintiff will request a continuance of his opposition filing-deadline so that he can obtain an Order from the Court requiring Defendant to provide discovery beyond Plaintiff and the location where he worked. II. DEFENDANT'S UPDATE A. Defendant's Summary Judgment Motion This is a PAGA-only action based on a single underlying claim, namely alleged violation o the temporary worker statute under Labor Code Section 201.3. Plaintiff, however, was a regula 15 employee of Defendant and was never a temporary worker. Plaintiff, therefore, does not hav 16 17 standing to pursue his claims. Defendant recently filed a motion for summary judgment on this issue, 18 which is scheduled to be heard August 31,2018. 19 20 B. Cross-Motions re Discovery Standing is a threshold issue that affects this Court's jurisdiction and must be resolved befor 21 the case can proceed. It would be an abuse of the discovery process to allow representative discover 22 at this juncture before resolving the issue of standing. Williams v. Superior Court, 3 cal.5th 531 23 (20 17) does not require a different result. The Court in Williams said the proper mechanism t 24 contest standing is through a motion for summary judgment, which is what Defendant is doing here. 25 This narrow issue of standing can and should be decided as a matter of law now, before intrusive an 26 costly representative discovery is permitted. Thus, Defendant has filed a motion for protective order, 27 which is scheduled to be heard around the same time as this Status Conference on June 22, 2018. 28 4 JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT 1 C. Plaintiff's Notice of New Authority (Huffv Securitas) Should be Rejected 2 On June 13, 2018, Plaintiff filed a Notice of New Authority pertaining to Huffv Securita 3 Security Services USA, Inc., _Cal.Rptr.3d_, 2018 WL 2328672 (May 23, 2018). The Notic 4 should be rejected for two reasons. 5 First, Huff should be rejected because it is irrelevant to the pending motions. In Huff, th 6 plaintiff alleged additional Labor Code violations beyond just Labor Code section 201.3. Therefore 7 even though the court granted summary judgment on the Section 201.3 claim, the court found th 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 lawsuit could continue. Those facts are not present here. The operative complaint herein is th Second Amended Complaint under which Plaintiff asserts a single Labor Code violation, namel alleged violation of Section 201.3. Therefore, Plaintiff cannot continue to pursue his case if (an when) his Section 201.3 claim fails. This issue is scheduled to be heard in connection wit Defendant's summary judgment motion on August 31,2018. Second, Defendant objects on the grounds the Notice did more than merely cite the ne decision and attach a copy thereof. Instead the Notice constitutes an improper sur-reply, for whic 15 16 there is no statutory or other authority. See Code Civ. Proc. § 1 005(b ), (c). Therefore, the Notic 17 should be rejected. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Ill 27 Ill 28 Ill 5 JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT 1 DATED: June 15, 2018 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 DATED: June 15, 2018 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Respectfully submitted, DIVERSITY LAW GROUP LAW OFFICES OF CHOI & ASSOC ES By: Lar E ard i Attorneys or Plaintiff SHAILENDRA SINGH Respectfully submitted, OGLETREE DEAKINS NASH SMOAK & STEWART By: Spencer C. Skeen Marlene M. Moffitt Tim L. Johnson Attorneys for Defendant INTER-CON SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC. 6 JOINTFURTHERSTATUSCONFERENCESTATEMENT 1 DATED: June -' 2018 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 DATED: June I~ 2018 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Respectfully submitted, DIVERSITY LAW GROUP LAW OFFICES OF CHOI & ASSOCIATES By: Larry W. Lee Edward W. Choi Attorneys for Plaintiff SHAILENDRA SINGH Respectfully submitted, OGLETREE DEAKINS NASH SMOAK & STEW ART By: SpenceWs Marlene M. Moffitt Tim L. Johnson Attorneys for Defendant INTER-CON SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC. 6 JOINTFURTHERSTATUSCONFERENCESTATEMENT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 PROOF OF SERVICE (Code of Civil Procedure Sections 1013a, 2015.5) STATE OF CALIFORNIA ] ]ss. ] COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES I am employed in the County of Los Angeles, State of California. I am over the age of 18 and not a party to the within action; my business address is 515 S. Figueroa Street, Suite 1250, Los Angeles, California 90071. On June 15, 2018, I served the following document(s) described as: JOINT FURTHER STATUS CONFERENCE STATEMENT on the interested parties in this action as follows: X Spencer C. Skeen Marlene M. Moffitt Tim L. Johnson Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. 4370 La Jolla Village Drive, Suite 990 San Diego, California 92122 Attorneys for Defendant Inter-Con Security Systems, Inc. BY ELECTRONIC SERVICE: Based on a court order I caused the above- entitled document(s) to be served through the Odyssey eFileCA E-Filing System at the website www.california.tylerhost.net, addressed to all parties appearing on the electronic service list for the above-entitled case. The service transmission was reported as complete and a copy of the filing receipt/confirmation will be filed, deposited, or maintained with the original document(s) in this office. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the above is true and correct. Executed on June 15, 2018 Los Angeles California. PROOF OF SERVICE Electronically filed by Superior Court of CA, County of Santa Clara, on 6/15/2018 4:00 PM Reviewed By:R. Walker Case #17CV313202 Env #1630710