Urbino v. Orkin Servs. of Cal., Inc., 2013 WL 4055615 (9th Cir. 2013)

John Urbino alleged in the form of a claim under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) that Orkin illegally deprived him and other non-exempt employees of meal periods, overtime and vacation wages and accurate itemized wage statements. Defendants removed the action to federal court on the basis of diversity of citizenship between them and Urbino, contending that the violations identified by Urbino would give rise to claims involving 811 other employees who were issued at least 17,182 paychecks and that those claims in the aggregate could result in liability in excess of the jurisdictional minimum of $75,000. The district court found the PAGA claims to be common and undivided and therefore capable of aggregation, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the lower court’s order, holding that all of the rights at issue in the case are held individually and they can be redressed without the involvement of other employees: “Defendants’ obligation to [the employees] is not ‘as a group,’ but as ‘individuals severally.’ Thus, diversity jurisdiction does not lie because their claims cannot be aggregated.” See also Rodriguez v. AT&T Mobility Servs. LLC, 2013 WL 4516757 (9th Cir. 2013) (lead plaintiff’s waiver of any claim in excess of the $5 million jurisdictional minimum under the Class Action Fairness Act was ineffective in light of Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Knowles, 133 S. Ct. 1345 (2013)).

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.