At the Supreme Court’s conference yesterday, actions of note included:

  • Supreme Court leaves open possible further discovery of racial discrimination in State Bar disciplinary practices.
  • PAGA arbitration. The court granted review in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. The Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal unpublished opinion affirmed the denial of a petition to compel arbitration in a representative action under California’s Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act that claims Uber misclassified employees as independent contractors. (Related: here and here.) The appellate court found to be unenforceable a waiver of representative claims and also concluded that a court, not an arbitrator, is to decide whether the plaintiff is an employee who has standing to bring a PAGA action or an independent contractor who does not. The opinion was filed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana. (See here.) Adolph is the second PAGA case the California Supreme Court has agreed to hear since Viking. (See here.) [August 1 update: the court today limited the issue to: “Whether an aggrieved employee who has been compelled to arbitrate claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) that are ‘premised on Labor Code violations actually sustained by’ the aggrieved employee (Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. __, __ [142 S.Ct. 1906, 1916] (Viking River Cruises); see Lab. Code, §§ 2698, 2699, subd. (a)) maintains statutory standing to pursue ‘PAGA claims arising out of events involving other employees’ (Viking River Cruises, at p. __ [142 S.Ct. at p. 1916]) in court or in any other forum the parties agree is suitable.” The court also denied the plaintiff’s application for calendar preference and an expedited briefing schedule.]
  • Habeas dissenting vote. The court denied a pro per’s habeas corpus petition in Harris v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, but Justice Liu recorded a vote to issue an order to show cause. The docket gives no information about the issues raised by the petition, so we can’t tell the reason for the dissenting vote.
  • Criminal case grant-and-holds. There were 6 criminal case grant-and-holds: four more waiting for a decision in People v. Strong (see here), which was argued in May; one holding for In re Lopez (see here and here); and one more holding for In re Vaquera (see here), which has been fully briefed for over two years.
  • Disposal of grant-and-holds. The court got rid of nine former grant-and-holds, dismissing review in all of them instead of sending any back for reconsideration. Two cases — Melendez v. Westlake Services, LLC (see here) and Hernandez Flores v. Westlake Services, LLC (see here) — were holding for the court’s May decision in Pulliam v. HNL Automotive (2022) 13 Cal.5th 127. Conservatorship of J.Y. (see here) was holding for the April opinion in Conservatorship of Eric B. (2022) 12 Cal.5th 1085. Four cases were holding for both People v. Padilla (2022) 13 Cal.5th 152, which was decided in May, and People v. Federico, which the court transferred back to the Court of Appeal in February. Two cases were holding just for Padilla.