Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc., 15 Cal. 5th 582 (2024)

The California Supreme Court affirmed an appellate court judgment that “trial courts lack inherent authority to strike PAGA claims on manageability grounds”—that is, trial courts may not “dismiss [them] with prejudice.” In so holding, the Supreme Court overruled Wesson v. Staples the Office Superstore, LLC, 68 Cal. App. 5th 746 (2021).

The Court was careful to limit its decision to the question of whether trial courts can dismiss a PAGA claim on manageability grounds, but it assiduously avoided interfering with trial judges’ discretion to control their dockets. Thus, it “le[ft] undisturbed various case management tools” short of dismissing claims outright. In doing so, the Court expressly endorsed lower court decisions holding that trial courts may “limit the evidence to be presented at trial or otherwise limit the scope of the PAGA claim.” And it observed that because trial courts have the ability to limit evidence or claims, “it behooves the PAGA plaintiff to ensure that trial of the action is manageable[.]”

Because the California Supreme Court left intact a trial court’s inherent authority to control its own docket in the face of unwieldy PAGA claims, the ultimate impact of Estrada may prove to be relatively minor. Many trial courts already proactively work with litigants to manage individualized issues in PAGA cases, including requiring plaintiffs to submit trial plans at an early but practicable time. Nothing in Estrada casts any doubt on the propriety of these practices. Thus, employers may take the ruling as tacit encouragement to continue to try to limit PAGA claims in a way that allows parties and courts to manage individualized issues, even if outright dismissal is now off the table.

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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.