Most amici never know whether their amicus briefs were read, let alone whether they made any difference in the outcome.
Not so for California State University, one of the largest employers in California, which filed a California Supreme Court amicus brief authored by CALG’s Jens Koepke in Stone v. Alameda Health System. That case included a PAGA claim that a public entity violated California meal and rest break law, which underlying Labor Code violations the defendant argued did not apply to public entities.
The Court’s opinion not only agreed with the defendant on the underlying violations, but went further, concluding that PAGA claims may never lie against public entities for any purported Labor Code violations. In doing so, the Court cited CALG’s brief to show the significant negative impact of PAGA claims on public entities.
Preventing public-entity PAGA claims was of critical importance to CALG’s client (and many other public entities), which have faced multimillion-dollar litigation costs and penalties from constant PAGA litigation. Helping the Supreme Court reach that conclusion is a major success for an amicus brief like this.
To read the opinion in Stone, click here. You can read CALG’s amicus brief by clicking here.
