Bradford v. Professional Technical Security Services Inc

Background

Patrick Bradford filed a single claim under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) in San Francisco County Superior Court against his former employer, Professional Technical Security Services Inc (Protech). He alleged that Protech denied him and other employees required meal and rest breaks and failed to pay for work performed during those breaks. He also alleged related violations involving overtime, wage statements, payroll records, timely payment of wages, and payment of wages at separation.

Bradford was covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between his union, Protech, and other security companies. The CBA addressed wages, overtime, meal periods, rest breaks, and grievance and arbitration procedures. It required covered employees to pursue disputes involving those matters through the contract’s grievance process, which could lead to arbitration.

Protech removed the case to federal court, arguing that federal labor law—Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA)—displaced Bradford’s state-law claims. Protech also moved to dismiss because Bradford had not complied with the CBA’s mandatory grievance and arbitration procedures. Bradford moved to return the case to state court.

Section 204 claim

The court held that Bradford’s PAGA theory under California Labor Code section 204 was preempted, meaning displaced, by LMRA Section 301. Section 204 generally requires timely wage payments but allows a CBA to establish different pay arrangements. The court found that the CBA did so here. As a result, Bradford’s right to the payment schedule at issue existed solely because of the CBA.

The court therefore granted Protech’s motion to dismiss the section 204 portion of Bradford’s PAGA claim because Bradford had not exhausted the CBA’s required grievance procedures. The court did not remand that portion of the case.

Meal- and rest-break claims

The court rejected Protech’s argument that Bradford’s rest-break claim required interpreting the CBA. Although the CBA used the term “entitled” and provided fifteen-minute rest breaks, the court found no active dispute about the meaning of that term. Referring to or applying the CBA was not enough to cause preemption. The court granted Bradford’s motion to remand the section 226.7 rest-break claim and denied Protech’s motion to dismiss that claim as moot.

The court reached the same result for Bradford’s section 512(a) meal-period claim. It found that the CBA provisions concerning meal periods and emergency situations created, at most, a hypothetical connection to Bradford’s allegations. The claim focused on whether Protech violated California law, not on whether the company complied with or breached the CBA. The court granted remand of the section 512(a) claim and denied Protech’s motion to dismiss it as moot.

Other derivative claims and disposition

The court found that the remaining alleged Labor Code violations were derivative of the meal- and rest-break allegations. It therefore held that those claims were not preempted, granted Bradford’s motion to remand them, and denied Protech’s motion to dismiss them as moot.

In summary, the court granted in part and denied in part both motions. It dismissed Bradford’s PAGA theory based on Labor Code section 204 for failure to exhaust the CBA’s grievance procedures. It remanded the remainder of Bradford’s PAGA claim—including the section 226.7 and section 512(a) theories and the related derivative claims—to California Superior Court of San Francisco.