Donna Mezias

Mezias represents employers in all types of litigation including class actions and individual discrimination cases. Her clients include The Home Depot USA Inc., Marvell Technology Group Ltd., Climate Corp. and its parent, Monsanto Co., AT&T Inc. and the San Francisco 49ers.

In a new case, her client is MediaNews Group Inc. and several subsidiaries in a representative action under California's Private Attorney General Act on behalf of all newspaper carriers in the state for alleged violations of wage and hour laws. The complaint is premised on the plaintiff's allegation she was jointly employed by the defendants and was misclassified as an independent contractor. Gorton v. MediaNews Group Inc., RG18915525 (Alameda Super. Ct., filed Sept. 3, 2018).

"It's complicated in that the plaintiff has sued a number of entities who do not employ her directly," Mezias said. "MediaNews employs distributors; she works for them."

The joint employer question is likely to add another twist to cases that arrive in the post-Dynamex era that follows the state Supreme Court's 2018 adoption of a new test for employee classification. But Mezias said that might not be so clear cut.

How PAGA functions in the joint employer context is an issue Mezias is pursuing. "I've done a lot of joint employment cases and been very successful," she said. "I don't agree that Dynamex applies here."

Instead, Mezias pointed to a distinction between Dynamex, which covers rules for employers and their contractors, and a different case from 2010, Martinez v. Combs, 49 Cal.4th 35. "That case sets out joint employment rules for California," Mezias said. "And at lease one court of appeal opinion so far has held that Dynamex does not apply in a true joint employer case. They are related analytically but they are different."

The appellate case Mezias hopes to use to her client's advantage is Curry v. Equilon Enterprises LLC, 23 Cal.App.5th 289. It clarified that the policy reasons the high court applied in selecting the ABC test in Dynamex were uniquely relevant to the issue of allegedly misclassified independent contractors and do not apply in joint employer cases.

"The relationship between the plaintiff and her employer is with the distributor who engages the newspaper carrier workers," Mezias said. "And the distributor is in an independent contractual relationship with MediaNews. I hope to use Martinez to distinguish this matter from Dynamex, and I hope to have the case resolved on motion practice at the summary judgment stage."

It's complicated, and it keeps her challenged, Mezias said. "I'm busy and I enjoy what I do. And both are good things," she said.

-- John Roemer