(Newswire.net — October 16, 2013) Los Angeles, California —
Glenn Danas, Senior Counsel and Co-Director of Capstone Law’s Complex Motions and Appeals Department, praised Stanford Law School Professor Janet Cooper Alexander’s recent article about a new type of qui tam action. Professor Alexander’s article, To Skin a Cat: Qui Tam Actions as a State Legislative Response to Concepcion, 46 U. MICH. J.L. REFORM 1203 (Summer 2013), suggests an alternative approach that could be taken at the state level,” entailing “statutory qui tam actions to enforce civil penalties for violations of state consumer protection and employment laws.”
The California Labor Code’s Private Attorneys General Act, known as PAGA, performs exactly as Alexander describes, and has thus far proven immune to Concepcion based challenged, most notably in Brown v. Ralphs Grocery Co., 197 Cal. App. 4th 489 (2011), cert denied, 132 S. Ct. 1910 (2012). Danas, the principal architect of the winning briefing in Brown v. Ralphs, commented on Professor Alexander’s article, stating that it “hits the nail on the head in explaining how qui tam-type actions, like PAGA, provide the states with a mechanism for enforcing their own laws that cannot be emasculated or extinguished by corporations using mandatory arbitration agreements.” Danas added, “At Capstone Law APC we’ve been making nearly identical arguments since Concepcion issued, with multiple appellate courts agreeing, and now the California Supreme Court will hopefully decide that public law enforcement rights such as those embodied by PAGA do not yield to waivers contained in private adhesion contracts.”
The Impact Litigation Journal, a blog published by Capstone Law with contributions from its lawyers, published a piece on Professor Alexander’s article in July of this year.
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Stephen Gamber, Senior Counsel
Capstone Law APC
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Los Angeles, California 90067
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Email: Stephen.Gamber@CapstoneLawyers.com
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SOURCE: Capstone Law APC