Francisca Guillen v. Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. ( 2019 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS APR 30 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
FRANCISCA GUILLEN, an individual, on No. 17-56779
behalf of herself and all others similarly
situated, D.C. No.
2:15-cv-03813-MWF-PJW
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. MEMORANDUM*
DOLLAR TREE STORES, INC., a Virginia
corporation; DOES, 1-100, inclusive,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Michael W. Fitzgerald, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted April 8, 2019**
Pasadena, California
Before: GRABER and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and ARTERTON,*** District
Judge.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Janet Bond Arterton, United States District Judge for
the District of Connecticut, sitting by designation.
Plaintiff-Appellant Francisca Guillen brought this class action against her
employer, Defendant-Appellee Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., claiming violations of
California’s statutory requirement that employers provide wage statements to their
employees. At trial, the jury returned a verdict for Dollar Tree. Guillen challenges
the district court’s refusal to give her requested jury instruction, refusal to permit
evidence of other employers’ wage statement practices, and refusal to permit
amendment of her complaint. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
and we affirm.
1. We review a district court’s formulation of civil jury instructions for
abuse of discretion, Dang v. Cross, 422 F.3d 800, 804 (9th Cir. 2005), but we
review de novo whether an instruction states the law correctly, Clem v. Lomeli, 566
F.3d 1177, 1180–81 (9th Cir. 2009). Because Guillen’s requested instruction
lacked legal basis, the district court did not abuse its discretion. Peralta v. Dillard,
744 F.3d 1076, 1082 (9th Cir. 2014). Section 226(a) of the California Labor Code
establishes requirements for employers furnishing and retaining copies of wage
statements, but imposes no requirement governing how employees may access
retained copies of past wage statements. See Cal. Lab. Code § 226(a). Those
requirements are contained in separate provisions in section 226(b) and (c),
violations of which were not claimed in this case. The 2006 Opinion Letter issued
by California’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, on which Guillen relies,
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similarly makes clear that section 226(a) imposes no such requirement on
employers. See Cal. Office of the State Labor Comm’r, Div. of Labor Standards
Enf’t, Dep’t of Indus. Relations, Opinion Letter on Electronic Itemized Wage
Statements (July 6, 2006) (after discussion of what section 226(a) requires, noting
that “[a]dditionally . . . the record keeping requirements of Labor Code section 226
and 1174 must be adhered to and the pay records must be retained by the employer
for a period of at least three years and be accessible by employees and former
employees.” (emphasis added)).
2. Guillen also challenges the district court’s preclusion of evidence
of the methods used by similar employers to deliver wage statements to their
employees. “A district court’s evidentiary rulings are . . . reviewed for abuse of
discretion, and the appellant is additionally required to establish that the error was
prejudicial.” Tritchler v. County of Lake, 358 F.3d 1150, 1155 (9th Cir. 2004). The
district court excluded this evidence at trial under Federal Rule of Evidence 403,
ruling that the “legal standard isn’t that the company has to do the best method,”
“[i]t just has to have a sufficient method,” and reasoning that the jury might
wrongly infer from the comparison evidence that the applicable legal standard was
“best practices.” There is no legal authority requiring Dollar Tree to make its wage
statements as accessible as similar businesses do, and the concern of the district
court regarding jury confusion was well-founded. The district court’s exclusion of
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that evidence thus was not an abuse of discretion.
3. Finally, Guillen argues that the district court abused its discretion by
denying her leave to amend the complaint to allow her to be substituted as class
representative for the claimed violation of California’s Private Attorney General
Act (“PAGA”). “We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s denial of a
motion to amend a complaint.” Ventress v. Japan Airlines, 603 F.3d 676, 680 (9th
Cir. 2010). When the court-ordered deadline to amend has passed, motions for
leave to amend are analyzed under the good cause standard of Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 16. Coleman v. Quaker Oats Co., 232 F.3d 1271, 1294 (9th Cir.
2000). The court-ordered deadline to add parties or amend pleadings was
December 14, 2015. Guillen did not initiate her PAGA pre-filing administrative
notice requirement until October 26, 2016, and did not seek leave to file her Third
Amended Complaint until February 2017. Guillen contends that she could not seek
this amendment until she had complied with PAGA’s notice requirement but offers
no explanation as to why she delayed fulfilling that requirement for almost a year
after the deadline to add parties or amend pleadings. Given the passage of time and
absence of any good cause explanation from Guillen for the delay, the district court
did not abuse its discretion by denying leave to amend.
AFFIRMED.
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