Uber Technologies, Inc., et al. v. Johnathon Gregg

In Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 142 S. Ct. 1906 (2022), this Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts the California-law rule that actions under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) “cannot be divided into individual and non-individual claims.” Id. at 1925. This Court also instructed that the arbitrable individual PAGA claims must be “pared away” from the nonindividual claims and “committed to a separate proceeding.” Ibid. The California courts have refused to follow this Court’s guidance. In this case (as in several others), the California Court of Appeal refused to sever the arbitrable individual claim from the non-individual claims on the theory that this aspect of Viking River was grounded in California law rather than the Federal Arbitration Act. App., infra, 24a-25a. The California Supreme Court has since similarly held that PAGA claims constitute “a single action” in which the individual PAGA claim compelled to arbitration nonetheless remains in court for the purpose of allowing a plaintiff to establish statutory standing to pursue the non-individual claims. Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., 532 P.3d 682, 694-695 (2023). The question presented is: Does the Federal Arbitration Act require the complete severance of arbitrable individual PAGA claims from non-individual PAGA claims, with the individual PAGA claims committed to a separate proceeding?