Gary M. McLaughlin

McLaughlin handles complex California labor and employment matters involving high-stakes legal issues, especially wage and hour, employee misclassification and class, collective and representative actions for Fortune 500 companies and other major employers.

McLaughlin’s clients include VCA Inc. animal hospitals and retail groups including Albertsons LLC, Starbucks Corp. and Michaels Stores Inc.

He represented Vicar Operating Inc., which operates VCA Hospitals, in a class action alleging off-the-clock work, unpaid overtime, missed meal and rest breaks, wage statement violations and Private Attorneys General Act penalties on behalf of current and former California VCA employees. Duran v. Vicar Operating Inc., BC510327 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 29, 2013).

McLaughlin obtained partial summary judgment, dismissing the claims for failure to pay regular and overtime wages. The court then denied class certification, agreeing that the question of why people did not get timely meal breaks was too individualized. McLaughlin argued that the same holds true for PAGA claims, and that it would be impractical to bring in potentially thousands of witnesses to try to prove a violation.

“Can you rely on representative evidence? You haven’t gone through the class certification process, which has various safeguards like typicality, commonality and predominance that allow you to say things are similar for everyone,” he said. “You can’t just bring in a couple people to testify and assume the same is true of everyone else.”

He filed motions to dismiss the remaining PAGA claims on the grounds that they are unmanageable. Those motions are pending.

PAGA allows an “aggrieved employee” to sue on behalf of him or herself and other current and former employees to collect civil penalties for California Labor Code violations.

“It’s a representative action similar to a class action,” McLaughlin said. “The California Supreme Court decided sometime back that [PAGA claims] don’t have to meet the normal requirements of a class action. That allows plaintiffs, to a certain degree, to get around problems they might have with class certification.”

McLaughlin said many plaintiffs are using PAGA as a kind of back door to class certification, and that uncertainties surrounding PAGA claims will continue to present challenges to employers.

— Jennifer Chung Klam