L-R: Roland Juarez, Elizabeth Sherwood, and Christopher Pardo of Hunton Andrews Kurth. Courtesy photos
The legal path between employee arbitration agreements under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and nonindividual representative claims under the California Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) has been anything but smooth. Two new (albeit unpublished and uncitable) cases, Piran v. Yamaha Motor, No. G062198, 2024 WL 484845 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2024)(unpub.) (Yamaha) and Cooley v. ServiceMaster, No. 23-15643, 2024 WL 866123 (9th Cir. Feb. 29, 2024) (ServiceMaster), help to illustrate the challenges and unanswered questions lingering in the wake of this rapidly developing area of law.
Because both the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, 596 U.S. 639, 142 S. Ct. 1906, 213 L. Ed. 2d 179, reh’g denied, 143 S. Ct. 60, 213 L. Ed. 2d 1145 (2022) (Viking River) and the California Supreme Court’s responsive 2023 decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, 14 Cal. 5th 1104, 532 P.3d 682 (2023) (Adolph) are key to understanding Yamaha and ServiceMaster, each is summarized below.
