Supreme Court of the United States - RESPONDENT’S BRIEF IN OPPOSITION

At the same time, the Court held that the FAA does require enforcement of an agreement to arbitrate the employee’s individual PAGA claims, even if “bifur- cated proceedings” are needed to resolve both the individual claims in arbitration and the remaining non-individual claims in court. [...] Emphasizing that “the Legislature’s purpose in enacting the PAGA was to augment the limited enforcement capability of the [LWDA] by empowering employees to enforce the Labor Code as representatives of the Agency,” the court concluded that “an agreement by employees to waive their right to bring a PAGA action” would impermissibly “serve[] to disable one of the primary mechanisms for enforcing the L. [...] The Court then construed a severability clause contained 8 in the agreement to require arbitration of individual PAGA claims and to foreclose arbitration of non- individual PAGA claims in the event that the waiver of PAGA claims altogether was unenforceable. [...] Because the Court had held that the FAA requires enforcement of such an agreement to separate individual and non-individual PAGA claims and to submit the former to arbitration, it concluded by considering the state-law consequences of such an agreement. [...] Instead, the court explained, the employee’s non-individual claims could be stayed in court while arbitration proceeded on any individual claims; once the arbitrable claims reached final judgment, the Court went on, the arbitrator’s findings would bind the court in resolving the remaining claims.