VANESSA RIVERA V. UHS OF DELAWARE, INC., No. 15-56972 (9th Cir. 2017)

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FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION DEC 1 2017 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT U.S. COURT OF APPEALS VANESSA RIVERA, as an individual and No. 15-56972 on behalf of all employees similarly situated, D.C. No. 5:15-cv-00863-JGB-DTB Plaintiff-Appellee, MEMORANDUM* v. UHS OF DELAWARE, INC., DBA Universal Health Services of Delaware, Inc., Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Jesus G. Bernal, District Judge, Presiding Submitted November 16, 2017** Pasadena, California Before: NGUYEN and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges, and SEEBORG,*** District Judge. UHS of Delaware, Inc. appeals the district court’s order finding * 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 Richard Seeborg, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California, sitting by designation. unenforceable a provision in an arbitration agreement that waives representative claims under California’s Private Attorney General Act (“PAGA”). Reviewing the order de novo, see Kilgore v. KeyBank, Nat’l Ass’n, 718 F.3d 1052, 1057 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) (citation omitted), we affirm.1 UHS argues that DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, 136 S. Ct. 463 (2015), abrogated Sakkab v. Luxottica Retail North America, Inc., 803 F.3d 425 (9th Cir. 2015), and Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, 59 Cal. 4th 348 (2014), and therefore the district court’s reliance on Sakkab and Iskanian was erroneous. We disagree and conclude that Imburgia is not clearly irreconcilable with Sakkab or Iskanian. See Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc). Imburgia simply held that a California court failed to place arbitration contracts “on equal footing with all other contracts” when it interpreted a choice-of-law provision in an arbitration agreement. 136 S. Ct. at 468–71 (quoting Buckeye Check Cashing, Inc. v. Cardegna, 546 U.S. 440, 443 (2006)). Sakkab and Iskanian, in contrast, directly addressed the validity of PAGA waivers in arbitration agreements under state and federal law. Sakkab, 803 F.3d at 431–40; Iskanian, 59 Cal. 4th at 378–89. Therefore, neither case is undermined by Imburgia. 1 Because we affirm, we deny Appellee Vanessa Rivera’s motion for summary affirmance as moot. 2 AFFIRMED. 3

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