Limits on the Relation Back of Dead Plaitiff's PAGA Claims

Hargrove v. Legacy Healthcare, Inc., No. E76240 (July 1, 2022)

This is a PAGA case where the plaintiff died four years into the case. Dead Plaintiff’s lawyers moved to amend and swap in a New Plaintiff, which they viewed as necessary to avoid statute of limitations issues that would arise if they just filed a new case. The trial court denied the motion and dismissed the case. New Plaintiff appealed.

There’s a threshold issue about New Plaintiff’s standing to appeal. Generally appellate standing requires the appellant to be a “party aggrieved.” See Code Civ. Proc. § 902. That has two parts: (1) the appellant needs to be a party. Like, in the caption. So, for instance, unnamed members of a class who object to a class action settlement are not parties. And (2) is aggrieved. As in hurt by the judgment or order being appealed. There is, however, and exception to (1): you can appeal without being a party if you tried to become a party by moving to intervene but were rebuffed in that effort by the trial court. New Plaintiff didn’t officially do that here. But the Court of Appeal exercises its discretion to treat her amendment motion as an unsuccessful effort at permissive intervention. Which resolves the standing question.

On the merits, the Court of Appeal finds that New Plaintiff couldn’t sub in for Dead Plaintiff and her claim wouldn’t relate back. At the time Dead Plaintiff gave notice to the LWDA, New Plaintiff was not even an employee yet, so she wouldn’t have had standing to bring Dead Plaintiff’s PAGA claim. That purportedly distinguishes the facts of this case from. Hutcheson v. Superior Court, 74 Cal.App.5th 932, 935 (2022), which permitted both a substitution and relation back under facts where the new plaintiff would have had standing to bring the original plaintiff’s claim.

Affirmed.

Nothing to Relate Back to

Sholes v. Lambreth Trucking Co., No. C070770 (D3 Apr. 6, 2017)

Plaintiff is a pro per suing a neighbor over a fire that damaged his property. The Neighbor successfully demurred to a series of complaints, with Plaintiff obtaining leave to amend. As a result, Plaintiff’s complaints alleged a series of ever-evolving legal theories, beginning with a claim based on an insurance dispute but ultimately landing on a trespass theory. But by the time the trespass theory was raised, the statute of limitations had long run. And because the trial court held that it didn’t relate back to the original complaint, the case was dismissed as time-barred.

The Court of Appeal affirms. Problem is that Plaintiff’s timely original complaint was basically devoid of facts.  Owing that defect, the court holds that there was “nothing to which the first amended complaint can be  compared to or to which they can relate back.” The allegations were simply too sparse to put defendant on notice of the nature of the claim that plaintiff later pleaded in subsequent iterations.

Affirmed.

For Whom the Cross-Claim Tolls

ZF Micro Devices, Inc. v. TAT Capital Partners, Ltd., No. H040776 (as modified Nov. 30, 2016)

This case deals with an interesting issue on the statute of limitations. To what cross-claims does the relation-back doctrine apply to toll a limitations period? Does it only apply to compulsory cross-claims, or to permissive ones too?