We sued Postmates, now Uber Technologies, Inc. in 2017 alleging various labor code violations in a class action and representative action under California Lab. Code §2698 et seq. (otherwise known as Private Attorney General Act or PAGA) The trial court denied Postmates’s petition to compel arbitration of the PAGA claim for civil penalties brought by Plaintiffs. In denying Plaintiffs’ petition with respect to their PAGA claim, the trial court followed the seminal Supreme Court’s decision in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348 (Iskanian), which held that representative action waivers were unenforceable. Shortly after, the United States Supreme Court decided Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018) 138 S.Ct. 1612 (Epic Systems). Postmates appealed the trial court’s order arguing that Epic Systems implicitly overruled Iskanian, to the extent that it held that PAGA waivers in arbitration agreements were unenforceable.
On July 20, 2021, the First District of the California Court of Appeal in a published opinion, rejected Postmates’ arguments that Iskanian was abrogated by subsequent United States Supreme Court decisions and affirmed the order denying the motion to compel arbitration of the PAGA claim. (Winns v. Postmates Inc. (2021) 66 Cal. App. 5th 803.) On October 13, 2021, the California Supreme Court denied Postmates’ petition for review and resolved the issue that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) or Epic Systems did not abrogate Iskanian, and thus, in California, PAGA claims are not subject to arbitration. (Winns v. Postmates Inc. (2021) 66 Cal. App. 5th 803.)