Bourgeois v. Pentec Health, Inc.

Background

Penny Bourgeois is a registered nurse whom Pentec Health, Inc. hired in 2016 as a traveling nurse. The opinion states that Bourgeois has lived in Texas since Pentec hired her and that Pentec operates under Pennsylvania law and has its principal place of business in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania. Bourgeois worked in more than a dozen states, including California, and states that she performed substantial nursing duties in California from January 15, 2019, through October 29, 2022.

Bourgeois alleged that Pentec did not track her actual hours, that she regularly worked more than eight hours per day and 40 hours per week in California without overtime pay, and that she missed required meal and rest breaks. Her amended complaint asserted six California-law causes of action involving overtime, payment for all hours worked, meal periods, rest breaks, accurate wage statements, and California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL). Pentec later paid Bourgeois $28,159.48 net, based on $46,403.25 in gross back wages, but the opinion does not state that this resolved all of her claims.

Summary-Judgment Rulings

Summary judgment is a decision without a trial that is appropriate when the evidence shows no genuine dispute over a fact that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.

Pentec argued that California’s labor laws did not apply to Bourgeois because she was a Texas resident, Pentec was a Pennsylvania company, and Bourgeois worked in several states. The court rejected Pentec’s proposed all-or-nothing approach. It explained that whether California law applies to an interstate employment relationship requires a fact-specific, claim-by-claim analysis. The court found that Pentec had not adequately analyzed the specific Labor Code provisions or provided enough factual detail about Bourgeois’s work in Texas, Pennsylvania, and California to establish that California law could not apply.

Viewing the evidence in Bourgeois’s favor, the court found at least one factual dispute that prevented summary judgment on the California Labor Code claims. The court therefore denied Pentec’s motion on that basis. The court did not conclusively decide the full extent to which California law applies. It stated that the parties should provide detailed, claim-by-claim analyses in a renewed summary-judgment motion, including discussion of statutory language, legislative history, and policy considerations.

The court also denied summary judgment on Bourgeois’s claim under California Labor Code section 558.1. Bourgeois said she was asserting that claim against Pentec as the employer. Although the court described the claim as possibly redundant, it found that Pentec had provided no authority requiring dismissal.

UCL Claim and Remand Motion

The court granted summary judgment to Pentec on the UCL claim because Bourgeois had an adequate legal remedy through her Labor Code claims and therefore could not obtain equitable relief under the UCL in federal court. The court rejected Bourgeois’s argument that the UCL’s longer limitations period supplied an adequate basis for equitable relief for older wage claims. It also found no basis for forward-looking injunctive relief because Bourgeois had not worked in California since October 2022, Pentec stated that it no longer provided nursing services in California and did not intend to do so in the future, and Bourgeois offered no evidence contradicting that point.

Bourgeois asked the court to remand the UCL claim to state court rather than dismiss it. The court denied the motion to remand and dismissed the UCL claim without prejudice to refiling in state court.

Disposition and Case Management

The court granted Pentec’s motion for summary judgment only as to the UCL claim and otherwise denied the motion for summary judgment. It denied Bourgeois’s motion to remand. The court vacated the scheduled pretrial conference, motions-in-limine hearing, and jury trial; set a case management conference for March 18, 2025; and directed the parties to file a joint case-management statement addressing how to move the case forward, including a schedule for a renewed summary-judgment motion.