Park v. LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc.

[7] 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA [10] 11 TAIJIN PARK, individually and on behalf Case No.: 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) of all others similarly situated, [12] ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT’S Plaintiff, 13 MOTION TO DISMISS WITHOUT vs. PREJUDICE [14] 15 [ECF No. 5.] LG ELECTRONICS U.S.A., INC., and [16] DOES 1 through 10 inclusive, 17 Defendants. [19] 20 Plaintiff Taijin Park (“Plaintiff”) brings this putative class action alleging various 21 state law labor and wage violations arising from his employment with LG Electronics, 22 U.S.A, Inc. Defendant LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. (“Defendant”) has filed a Motion to 23 Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint. ECF No. 5. The Motion has been fully briefed. ECF 24 Nos. 7, 9. The Court finds this motion suitable for disposition without oral argument 25 pursuant to Civ. L.R. 7.1(d)(1). For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS [26] 27 1 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 Defendant’s Motion and dismisses the Complaint without prejudice. The Court further 2 VACATES the hearing on this matter scheduled for November 27, 2020. 3 I. Background 4 On June 9, 2020, Plaintiff filed a putative class action in the Superior Court of 5 California for Imperial County against Defendant LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., and Does 6 1 through 10 inclusive, alleging a number of violations of the California Labor Code 7 (“CLC”) and unfair business practices under the Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”). ECF 8 No. 1, Ex. A (“Complaint”). On September 4, 2020, Defendant removed the action to 9 this Court. ECF No. 1. The instant Motion followed. ECF No. 5. 10 Plaintiff alleges that he “is an individual who, during the time periods relevant to 11 this Complaint, was employed by Defendant LG U.S.A., Inc. . . . located in Calexico, 12 California.” Complaint ¶ 1. Plaintiff states he was employed in a non-exempt position 13 from approximately May 2014 to February 17, 2020, in a position that involved 14 “collecting and inputting data, setting up project management improvement plans based 15 on [LG’s] policies/procedures, and scheduling, collecting, and logging total preventative 16 maintenance (‘TPM’) plans.” Id. ¶ 9. According to Plaintiff, he and other members of 17 the putative class were “[n]ot paid for all hours worked in violation of the California 18 Labor Code; [n]ot paid for missed meals and/or rest periods in violation of the California 19 Labor Code; [n]ot paid for all overtime wages at correctly computed rates in violation of 20 the California Labor Code; [n]ot paid all unused accrued vacation wages in violation of 21 the California Labor Code; and [n]ot provided with accurate itemized wage statements in 22 violation of the California Labor Code.” Id. ¶ 7. Plaintiff also alleges that these 23 violations of the CLC constitute violations of the UCL. Id. ¶ 97. 24 II. Legal Standard 25 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) permits dismissal for “failure to 26 state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Dismissal 27 2 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate where the complaint lacks a cognizable legal theory or 2 sufficient facts to support a cognizable legal theory. See Balistreri v. Pacifica Police 3 Dep’t, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), 4 the plaintiff is required only to set forth a “short and plain statement of the claim showing 5 that the pleader is entitled to relief,” and “give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . 6 claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 7 544, 555 (2007). 8 A complaint may survive a motion to dismiss only if, taking all well-pleaded 9 factual allegations as true, it contains enough facts to “state a claim to relief that is 10 plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, [11] 550 U.S. at 570 ). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual 12 content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable 13 for the misconduct alleged.” Id. “[F]or a complaint to survive a motion to dismiss, the 14 non-conclusory factual content, and reasonable inferences from that content, must be 15 plausibly suggestive of a claim entitling the plaintiff to relief.” Moss v. U.S. Secret Serv., [16] 572 F.3d 962, 969 (9th Cir. 2009) (quotations omitted). The Court must accept as true all 17 facts alleged in the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. 18 al-Kidd v. Ashcroft, 580 F.3d 949, 956 (9th Cir. 2009). 19 Where a motion to dismiss is granted, “leave to amend should be granted ‘unless 20 the court determines that the allegation of other facts consistent with the challenged 21 pleading could not possibly cure the deficiency.’” DeSoto v. Yellow Freight Sys., Inc., [22] 957 F.2d 655, 658 (9th Cir. 1992) (quoting Schreiber Distrib. Co. v. Serv-Well Furniture 23 Co., 806 F.2d 1393 , 1401 (9th Cir. 1986)). In other words, where leave to amend would 24 be futile, the Court may deny leave to amend. 25 \ \ \ 26 \ \ \ 27 3 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 III. Discussion 2 A. Failure to State a Claim 3 Defendant moves to dismiss the Complaint in its entirety under Rule 12(b)(6) on 4 the basis that Plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to show that California employment 5 law applies to Plaintiff’s employment, which Defendant contends occurred solely in 6 Mexicali, Mexico. Plaintiff opposes, arguing that he has pled facts sufficient to show 7 Plaintiff performed work in California and that, accordingly, the provisions of the CLC 8 apply. 9 In reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must “begin by taking 10 note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state a claim.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 675 . To 11 state a claim for relief under the provisions of the CLC, a plaintiff must allege facts to 12 meet the threshold requirement that he or she is an employee covered by the provisions. 13 The California Supreme Court has noted that California’s “employment laws apply to ‘all 14 individuals’ employed in this state.” Sullivan v. Oracle Corp., 51 Cal. 4th 1191 , 1197 15 (2011) (quoting Cal. Lab. Code § 1171.5 (a)). However, the California Supreme Court 16 has explicitly declined to hold that particular labor provisions, like minimum wage 17 orders, “never [apply] to employment outside of California.”1 Tidewater Marine W., Inc. 18 v. Bradshaw, 14 Cal. 4th 557, 578 (1996). But while there may be “limited 19 extraterritorial application of California’s employment laws,” Sullivan, 51 Cal. 4th at 20 1197, a case must present the “kinds of California connections [that] will suffice to 21 trigger the relevant provisions of California law,” Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., 9 Cal. 22 5th 732, 752, 466 P.3d 309, 319 (2020). Whether a particular California employment law [25] 1 Specifically, the court suggested that “California law . . . might follow California resident employees 26 of California employers who leave the state “‘temporarily . . . during the course of the normal workday.’” Sullivan, 51 Cal. 4th at 1199 (quoting Tidewater, 14 Cal. 4th at 578 ). 27 4 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 will apply to an interstate employment relationship is a matter of statutory interpretation 2 of the provision at issue. Id. 3 Plaintiff alleges a number of different CLC violations arising from his employment 4 with LG, including minimum wage violations, failure to pay overtime, meal and rest 5 break violations, and failure to provide CLC-compliant wage statements. These 6 provisions may apply to non-California conduct to different extents, but none can be 7 interpreted to apply to work with no connection to California other than the location of 8 the employer. At a minimum, the employment violations at issue must have some 9 connection to California. See Ward, 9 Cal 5th at 755 (finding wage statement provisions 10 in Section 226 applied to workers who do not work a majority of their time in any state, 11 “provided that California is the state that has the most significant relationship to the 12 work”); Oman v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 9 Cal. 5th 762, 775 (2020) (applying Ward and 13 declining to “allow[] any work in California, no matter how fleeting, to effectively 14 impose California law on documentation of all work in a pay period”); Sullivan, 51 Cal. 15 4th at 1197–98 (considering location of the nonexempt overtime work performed to 16 determine that CLC overtime provisions could apply to nonresidents who worked full 17 days or weeks in California). Several district court decisions, though decided before 18 Ward emphasized that there is no one-sized-fits-all test for determining the extent of 19 California employment law’s extraterritorial reach, looked to the relationship of the 20 employee’s claims to California to determine whether the CLC could apply. Bernstein v. 21 Virgin Am., Inc., 227 F. Supp. 3d 1049, 1064 (N.D. Cal. 2017) (finding plaintiffs had 22 failed to rebut presumption against extraterritorial application of meal period and rest 23 break provisions for breaks occurring outside of California, as plaintiffs did not show 24 policy originated from California headquarters); Yoder v. W. Express, Inc., 181 F. Supp. 25 3d 704, 724–25 (C.D. Cal. 2015) (considering location of work and employee’s residence 26 to determine if employee could claim protection under various CLC provisions and 27 5 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 UCL); Sarviss v. Gen. Dynamics Info. Tech., Inc., 663 F. Supp. 2d 883 , 900–01 (C.D. 2 Cal. 2009 ) (considering location of work to determine if California resident employee 3 was covered by minimum wage provisions). Although at this stage of the case the Court 4 does not attempt to identify precisely how far, if at all, each provision of the CLC extends 5 beyond California’s borders, as the California Supreme Court has noted, “the central 6 insight that has long guided courts seeking to discern the geographic scope of legislative 7 enactments [is] that the Legislature ordinarily does not intend for its enactments to create 8 conflicts with other sovereigns.” Ward, 9 Cal. 5th at 755 . Were any of the CLC 9 provisions that Plaintiff raises here to apply regardless of the claims’ connection to 10 California, serious concerns regarding interstate comity would arise. 11 Plaintiff has not alleged facts that indicate whether or not he worked or lived in 12 California during his employment with LG, nor has he alleged that any of the unlawful 13 conduct referred to in the Complaint occurred in California. After leaving aside legal 14 conclusions, Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79, the sole factual allegation suggesting a 15 connection to California is the statement that his employer, LG Electronics, U.S.A., Inc., 16 is located in Calexico, California. Complaint ¶ 1. Although this assertion leaves open 17 the possibility that Plaintiff performed work in California or that other relevant events 18 occurred in the state, the Court cannot supply necessary facts where Plaintiff has failed to 19 do so. It is not “enough that the complaint is ‘factually neutral’; rather, it must be 20 ‘factually suggestive’” of a claim for relief. Somers v. Apple, Inc., 729 F.3d 953 , 960 21 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557 n. 5). Nor can the Court infer that 22 Plaintiff performed work in the state from the Complaint’s assertion that Plaintiff’s 23 claims are typical of the claims of the class of California employees he purports to 24 represent, Complaint ¶¶ 41, 42, 55, as that is a legal conclusion, rather than a factual 25 allegation. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (quoting Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265 , 286 26 (1986)) (“[C]ourts ‘are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual 27 6 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM) 1 |} allegation.””). 2 Accordingly, because Plaintiff has not alleged where he worked or any other 3 relationship with California beyond the location of the Defendant, the Complaint has not 4 || plausibly alleged a claim under the CLC or UCL. The Court therefore GRANTS 5 || Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. 6 B. Leave to Amend 7 Defendant urges the Court to deny Plaintiff leave to amend, citing materials 8 || outside of the Complaint to support its assertion that Plaintiff cannot successfully amend 9 allege facts that would entitle him to the protections of California wage and hour law. 10 || ECF No. 5-1 at 10. Plaintiff asserts in his opposition that he performed work in 11 || California. ECF No. 7 at 5-7. The Court will not wade into disputed factual issues at the 12 motion to dismiss stage. As Plaintiff could conceivably cure the deficiencies in the 13 Complaint and “requests for leave should be granted with extreme liberality,” Moss, 572 14 at 972 (internal quotation marks omitted), the Court GRANTS Plaintiff leave to 15 ||}amend the Complaint. 16 Conclusion 17 For the reasons above, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss 18 || Plaintiff's Complaint without prejudice. The Court GRANTS Plaintiff leave to amend 19 ||the Complaint. The Court further VACATES the hearing currently scheduled for 20 || November 27, 2020. 21 IT IS SO ORDERED. 22 ||Dated: November 16, 2020 <— 24 United States District Judge [27] 28 3:20-cv-1738 GPC (BLM)