Felix Shafir

Horvitz & Levy • Burbank


Felix Shafir is a seasoned attorney with nearly 22 years of experience in employment law, a field he was drawn to due to its broad spectrum of intriguing issues. His expertise spans constitutional questions, contract and statute interpretation, and complex procedural matters in class action and arbitration law.


Shafir has handled a variety of significant cases, including a matter before the California Supreme Court, where he represented Lyft in a wage-and-hour dispute over driver classification. Turrieta v. Lyft, Inc. (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 955.


The case involved a settlement of PAGA claims that was challenged by objectors with separate PAGA actions, leading to a split in appellate court decisions and a review by the California Supreme Court.


"If the Supreme Court agrees with Lyft that such PAGA plaintiffs have no standing to object or to move to intervene or vacate, that development could have major ramifications for PAGA settlement proceedings going forward by sharply curtailing objections to PAGA settlements," Shafir said.


Additionally, Shafir filed an amicus brief in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Washington Legal Foundation and Atlantic Legal Foundation. Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 142 S. Ct. 1906 (2022). This case addressed the enforcement of an arbitration agreement's PAGA representative-action waiver, with the Supreme Court ultimately deciding on the matter of Federal Arbitration Act preemption.


"Years before this development, the California Supreme Court previously held the FAA did not apply to this prohibition because PAGA claims fell outside the FAA's coverage. In the U.S. Supreme Court, the defendant needed to focus on a broad range of questions implicated by the California Supreme Court's prohibition," Shafir said.


As a result, it could pay only limited attention to the California Supreme Court's central rationale for insulating the prohibition from FAA preemption, for example, the mistaken premise that the FAA did not apply to that prohibition because PAGA claims are government enforcement actions, he added.


"Consequently, our amicus brief focused heavily on why that rationale was wrong," Shafir said. "Happily, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, holding that the FAA applies to PAGA claims. This was a major breakthrough. For years, California courts insisted the FAA did not apply to PAGA claims, but, after Viking River Cruises, many lower courts have finally compelled individual PAGA claims to arbitration."


Shafir said that all this goes to show that, when it comes to constitutional protections -- like federal preemption -- California courts do not have the last word and businesses can and will continue to insist on their constitutional rights regardless of what California courts decide because the U.S. Supreme Court may yet overturn erroneous California decisions even if it takes time to do so. 


"This has been particularly true in the area of FAA preemption, where California courts have long been out of sync with the U.S. Supreme Court's federal arbitration precedent and the high court has therefore repeatedly stepped in, even if years later, to correct the erroneous course charted by California courts," Shafir said.