1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 DANNY ARMENTA, individually and Case No. 5:20-cv-02364-MCS-KK 11 on behalf of all others similarly situated, ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 12 REMAND [10] 13 Plaintiffs,

14 v. 15 STATER BROS. MARKETS, a 16 California Corporation; and DOES 1- 17 50, inclusive,

18 Defendants. 19 20 Plaintiff Danny Armenta moves to remand this matter, arguing that his claims are 21 not preempted by section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (“LMRA”) and 22 that the Court otherwise lacks jurisdiction. Mot. to Remand (“Motion”), ECF No. 10. 23 The Court held oral arguments and took the Motion under submission. For the following 24 reasons, the Court exercises jurisdiction over all claims and denies the Motion. 25 I. BACKGROUND 26 Armenta worked in Defendant’s meat department from roughly May 2004 to 27 September 2019. Compl. ¶ 17, ECF No. 1-1. Armenta’s employment was subject to a 28 collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between the United Food & Commercial 1 Workers International Union and Defendant. See CBA, ECF No. 1-5; see also CBA 2 Extension, ECF No. 1-6. Armenta brings the following claims on behalf of himself and 3 putative classes of other employees: (1) failure to properly calculate and pay overtime 4 wages; (2) failure to authorize and permit lawful rest periods; (3) failure to timely pay 5 wages owed upon separation of employment; (4) failure to reimburse necessary 6 expenses; (5) failure to accurately record and pay sick leave and/or paid time off; (6) 7 failure to comply with wage statement provisions; (7) violation of the Unfair 8 Competition law. See generally Compl. 9 II. LEGAL STANDARD 10 Federal courts are of limited jurisdiction and possess only that jurisdiction which 11 is authorized by either the Constitution or federal statute. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life 12 Ins. Co. of Am.,

(1994). Under

, federal courts have 13 jurisdiction over “all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the 14 United States.”

. A case “arises under” federal law if a plaintiff’s “well- 15 pleaded complaint establishes either that federal law creates the cause of action” or that 16 the plaintiff’s “right to relief under state law requires resolution of a substantial question 17 of federal law in dispute between the parties.” Franchise Tax Bd. v. Constr. Laborers 18 Vacation Tr. for S. Cal.,

(1983). In determining whether removal is 19 proper, a court should “strictly construe the removal statute against removal 20 jurisdiction.” Gaus v. Miles, Inc.,

(9th Cir. 1992). 21 III. EXTRINSIC EVIDENCE 22 Defendant asks the Court to consider the CBA, orders from other cases, 23 Armenta’s “final wage statement,” and a claimed individual settlement of Armenta’s 24 claims. Request for Judicial Notice (“RJN”), ECF No. 24-1. The Court considers the 25 CBA, Johnson v. Sky Chefs, Inc.,

, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 27, 26 2012) (“Courts routinely take judicial notice of the governing collective bargaining 27 agreement where necessary to resolve issues of preemption”) (citation omitted), and the 28 1 pleadings from other cases, but does not take judicial notice of reasonably disputed facts 2 in them. United States v. Wilson,

(9th Cir. 1980) (“[A] court may 3 take judicial notice of its own records in other cases, as well as the records of an inferior 4 court in other cases.”); Cousyn for Cousyn Grading and Demo Inc. v. Ford Motor 5 Company,

, at *4 (C.D. Cal. July 30, 2019) (“[E]ven when the court 6 judicially notices the existence of a reliable source, it may not notice disputed facts 7 contained within the source.”) (citation omitted). The Court also considers the proffered 8 wage statement. Mejia v. Farmland Mut. Ins. Co.,

, at *4 (E.D. Cal. 9 June 26, 2018) (taking judicial notice of wage statement). The Court does not consider 10 the alleged settlement agreements because Armenta challenged their authenticity in the 11 briefing and at oral arguments, and because the Motion is resolved in Defendant’s favor. 12 Pl.’s Obj. to Def.’s RJN, ECF No. 25-3; Fed. R. Evid. 201(a) and (b) advisory 13 committee's notes (noting that a “high degree of indisputability is the essential 14 prerequisite” to taking judicial notice and “the tradition has been one of caution in 15 requiring that the matter be beyond reasonable controversy.”). 16 IV. DISCUSSION 17 Defendant argues that section 301 preempts Armenta’s overtime claim, and that 18 the Court should exercise supplemental jurisdiction over remaining claims. 19 A. Preemption of Armenta’s Overtime Claim 20 “Courts in the Ninth Circuit apply a two-step analysis to determine whether 21 LMRA preemption applies.” Buckner v. Universal Television, LLC,

, 22 at *1 (C.D. Cal. November 30, 2017) (citation omitted). First, courts assess “whether 23 the asserted cause of action involves a right conferred upon an employee by virtue of 24 state law” instead of a CBA; if the right exists solely because of the CBA then the claim 25 is preempted.

(quoting Burnside v. Kiewit Pacific Corp.,

(9th 26 Cir. 2007)). Second, “if the right exists independently of the CBA, [courts] must still 27 consider whether it is nevertheless substantially dependent on analysis of a [CBA].”

28 / / / 1 Armenta alleges failure to pay overtime under California Labor Code §§ 510, 2 194, and 1197. Compl. ¶¶ 48-58. Section 510(a) provides that hours in excess of a 40- 3 hour workweek or an 8-hour workday must be compensated at one-and-one-half rate of 4 pay.

(a). Section 514 provides that Section 510 does not apply to 5 “an employee covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement” that contains certain 6 provisions.

§ 514; Curtis v. Irwin Indus., Inc.,

(9th Cir. 7 2019) (stating that “the default definition of overtime and overtime rates in section 510 8 does not apply to an employee who is subject to a qualifying CBA.”). If an applicable 9 CBA constitutes a “qualifying CBA” carved out from Section 510 by Section 514, then 10 the right to overtime pay “exists solely as a result of the CBA” and “therefore is 11 preempted under § 301.” Id. at 1154 (citation omitted). 12 The CBA is a “qualifying CBA” under Curtis because it provides for “the wages, 13 hours of work, and working conditions of the employees, and… premium wage rates 14 for all overtime hours worked and a regular hourly rate of pay for those employees of 15 not less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage” as required under section 16 514. See, e.g., Radcliff v. San Diego Gas & Elec. Co.,

, at *4 (S.D. 17 Cal. Feb. 12, 2021) (“[B]ecause the CBA applies to Plaintiff and meets the requirements 18 of section 514, Plaintiff does not have a right to overtime under section 510…”); Franco 19 v. E-3 Sys.,

, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2019) (“Defendant has met its 20 burden of proving that the CBAs here satisfy the requirements of § 514… Plaintiff’s 21 claim for overtime is controlled by the CBAs,” and “is therefore preempted by the 22 LMRA.”); Van Bebber v. Dignity Health,

, at *8 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 23 2019) (“Because § 514 applies, any cause of action brought by plaintiff seeking lost 24 overtime cannot be based on § 510, but must rest exclusively on the CBAs themselves. 25 Therefore, plaintiff’s overtime claim is preempted under “step one” of the § 301 26 preemption analysis.”); Vasquez v. Packaging Corp. of Am.,

, at *3 27 (C.D. Cal. June 7, 2019) (“[S]imilar to the plaintiff's overtime claim in Curtis, 28 Plaintiff’s overtime claim here ‘fails at step one of the preemption analysis,’ because 1 Plaintiff's CBA satisfies § 514 and so his overtime claim is governed by the CBA rather 2 than state law.”). Armenta argues that his overtime claim is not preempted because his 3 Complaint alleges only state law claims and does not reference the CBA. Motion 7-10. 4 But overtime claims “style[d] as state law claims” can still be preempted by LMRA, 5 Curtis,

, and post-Curtis courts reject Armenta’s very arguments, 6 finding that overtime claims pled under state law and without reference to a CBA are 7 nevertheless preempted if there is a qualifying CBA. See, e.g., Loaiza v. Kinkisharyo 8 Int'l, LLC,

, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2020) (denying motion to remand 9 based on argument “that, because the Complaint alleges only state law claims and does 10 not refer to the CBA, there is no LMRA preemption.”); Van Bebber,

, 11 at *9 (“In his attempt to avoid application of the LMRA, plaintiff has understandably 12 constructed his pleadings so as to avoid any reference to the CBAs, and to instead 13 ground his claim solely in California state law. Such artful pleading is ineffective in the 14 face of the evidence submitted by defendant, which affirmatively establishes that 15 plaintiff and the class members were subject to the CBAs, and that these CBAs meet 16 the requirements of § 514.”). Armenta’s reliance on pre-Curtis caselaw cannot avoid 17 that “the core of Curtis’s logic is that section 510 creates a negotiable right to overtime 18 wages; therefore, if an employee negotiates away this right by entering into a qualifying 19 CBA, the employee’s right to overtime wages necessarily derives from the CBA, not 20 California law.” Radcliff,

, at *5. 21 Because the CBA is a qualifying CBA under Section 514, Section 510’s overtime 22 provisions do not apply to Armenta and his overtime claim is based on rights that arise 23 solely from the CBA. Curtis,

. Armenta’s overtime claim is therefore 24 preempted under step one of the Burnside test and removal was proper.

25 B. Supplemental Jurisdiction 26 Where original jurisdiction exists over a claim, “the district courts shall have 27 supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in the action 28 within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or controversy 1 under Article III of the United States Constitution.”

(a); Bahrampour 2 v. Lampert,

(9th Cir. 2004) (“A state law claim is part of the same 3 case or controversy when it shares a ‘common nucleus of operative fact’ with the federal 4 claims and the state and federal claims would normally be tried together.”) (citation 5 omitted). “The decision to exercise [supplemental] jurisdiction remains discretionary 6 with the district court.” Mendoza v. Zirkle Fruit Co.,

(9th Cir. 7 2002). A district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim 8 that arises out of a common nucleus of operative facts that provide the basis for a claim 9 for which there is federal subject matter jurisdiction. Declining to exercise jurisdiction 10 is appropriate under the following circumstances when:

11 (1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law, 12 (2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over 13 which the district court has original jurisdiction, 14 (3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original 15 jurisdiction, or 16 (4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for 17 declining jurisdiction. 18

(c). 19 Armenta’s claims share a common nucleus of operative facts related to his 20 employment. See generally Compl. The relevant factors do not support declining 21 supplemental jurisdiction over the non-preempted state-law claims. 22 V. CONCLUSION 23 Armenta’s Motion is DENIED. 24 IT IS SO ORDERED. 25

26 Dated: March 23, 2021 ________________________________ 27 MARK C. SCARSI 28 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE