In Mejia v. Merchants Building Maintenance, the Court addressed whether a court may split a single PAGA claim so as to require a representative employee to arbitrate that aspect of the claim in which the plaintiff seeks to recover the portion of the  penalty that represents the amount sufficient to recover underpaid wages where the representative employee has agreed to arbitrate her individual wage claims, while at the same time retain in the judicial forum that aspect of the employee’s claim in which the  plaintiff seeks to recover the additional $50 or $100 penalties provided for in section 558 for each violation of the wage requirements? The Court held they may not be split.  The defendants moved to compel arbitration of a portion of plaintiff’s cause of action brought against them for various violations of the Labor Code under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) (Lab. Code,§ 2698 et seq.). The defendants argued that Mejia’s claim to recover the portion of the  penalty under section 558 that represents underpaid wages amounts to a claim for  individual damages because it seeks “victim-specific relief,” given that section 558  provides that any amount recovered representing the amount of underpaid wages are to  be directed to “the affected employee.”  They argued that because she agreed to arbitrate any individual claim that she may have to her unpaid wages, any claim that she asserts seeking the amount that is sufficient to recover underpaid wages under section 558 must be separated from the remainder of the PAGA claim and sent to arbitration. Defendants argued that only that portion of the claim brought pursuant to section 558 in which she seeks to recover the $50 or $100 per violation per employee civil penalty on behalf of herself and other aggrieved employees may be brought by an individual plaintiff as a representative PAGA claim that is not subject to arbitration.

The Court held that a single PAGA claim seeking to recover section 558 civil penalties may not be “split” between that portion of the claim seeking an “amount sufficient to recover underpaid wages” and that portion of the claim seeking the $50 or $100 per-violation, per-pay-period assessment imposed for each wage violation. The result is that an employee bringing a PAGA claim to recover the civil penalties identified in section 558 may not be compelled to arbitrate that portion of her PAGA claim that seeks an amount sufficient to recover underpaid wages pursuant to that statute, while the rest of the claim that seeks the $50 or $100 per-pay-period per violation portion of the penalty remains in a judicial forum. The Court therefore affirmed the trial court’s order denying defendants’ motion to compel arbitration.

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