California Legal Brief

The Rule of **Cortina v. North American Title Company** is that a trial court's authority to delegate matters to a referee without the parties' consent is strictly circumscribed by the California Constitution and Code of Civil Procedure, and a nonconsensual reference of substantial scope and magnitude is entirely unauthorized and requires reversal, under circumstances where wage and hour class action proceedings are referred to a referee over defendant's strenuous objections without meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements for nonconsensual reference.

The Rule of **Santana v. Studebaker Health Care Center** is that ambiguities in multiple arbitration-related documents signed simultaneously do not negate a valid agreement to arbitrate employment disputes where the parties' intent to arbitrate is clear from the overall terms, under circumstances where the documents contain minor conflicts regarding procedural matters like arbitrator selection but consistently reflect mutual agreement to resolve employment-related disputes through binding arbitration.

The Rule of Ehrenkranz v. San Francisco Zen Center is that the ministerial exception does not bar wage-and-hour claims by ministers against religious organizations absent evidence that such claims raise an ecclesiastical concern, under circumstances where the claims seek only lost or unpaid wages for work performed as part of the religious organization's commercial activities and adjudication requires no inquiry into ecclesiastical matters.

The Rule of Jazmin Ayala-Ventura v. The Superior Court of Fresno County is that an employment arbitration agreement with potentially broad scope and indefinite duration is not substantively unconscionable when the employer's limited business operations restrict the realistic range of non-employment claims that could arise, under circumstances where the agreement provides mutual arbitration obligations, neutral arbitration procedures, and accessible dispute resolution terms.

The Rule of Sorokunov v. NetApp is that an arbitration award finding that a plaintiff did not suffer individual Labor Code violations can preclude the same plaintiff from claiming standing as an "aggrieved employee" in a PAGA action based on the identical violations, under circumstances where the plaintiff fully litigated the Labor Code violations in arbitration with a final award against them.

The Rule of The Merchant of Tennis is that when employers obtain individual settlement agreements from putative class members through fraud or misrepresentation, a curative notice must inform those employees that rescinding their agreements to join the class action may require repayment of settlement funds at the conclusion of litigation, under Civil Code sections 1689, 1691, and 1693, even though the trial court retains discretion to adjust equities between the parties at judgment.

The Rule of The Merchant of Tennis is that when putative class members rescind individual settlement agreements obtained through fraud or duress to join a class action lawsuit, they must be notified in the curative notice that they could be responsible for repayment of settlement consideration at the conclusion of litigation pursuant to Civil Code sections 1689, 1691, and 1693, under circumstances where an employer has obtained nearly 1,000 individual settlement agreements from employees during pending class certification proceedings through misrepresentations about the litigation.

The Rule of Martinez v. Sierra Lifestar, Inc. is that a defendant's argument that bonuses were discretionary or in the nature of gifts does not defeat typicality of a class representative's wage and hour claims when the same argument applies to identical bonuses paid to other class members, under circumstances where the employer used a uniform practice of excluding all such bonuses from regular rate of pay calculations.

The Rule of Vela v. Harbor Rail Services is that a railcar repairman who repairs decommissioned freight cars withdrawn from service at a railroad yard is not a "railroad employee" or "transportation worker" exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, under circumstances where the worker is employed by an independent contractor company, has no direct employment relationship with the railroad, and performs repair work on rail cars that are temporarily out of service and not actively engaged in transporting goods.