Ray v. County of Los Angeles, No. 17-56581 (9th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the county's motion to dismiss a putative class action under the Fair Labor Standards Act based on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds. The panel weighed the factors set out in Mitchell v. Los Angeles Community College District, 861 F.2d 198 (9th Cir. 1988), and held that the county was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity because it is not an arm of the state when it administers the In-Home Supportive Services program.
The panel also held that the Supreme Court has not overruled or undermined Mitchell in Hess v. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation, 513 U.S. 30 (1994). Furthermore, the effective date of the rule is January 1, 2015; this date is not impermissibly retroactive; and the DOL's decision not to enforce a new rule does not obviate private rights of action. Accordingly, the panel affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Labor Law / Eleventh Amendment Immunity. The panel affirmed the district court’s order denying a defendant county’s motion to dismiss, on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds, a putative collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act; reversed the district court’s order regarding the putative collective period; and remanded. Plaintiff homecare providers were employed through California’s In-Home Supportive Services program, which is implemented and run by the State and its counties. In October 2013, the Department of Labor promulgated a new rule providing that homecare providers would be entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA. The final rule had an * The Honorable Kathleen Cardone, United States District Judge for the Western District of Texas, sitting by designation. RAY V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 3 effective date of January 1, 2015. In 2014, the District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the rule. On August 21, 2015, the D.C. Circuit reversed and ordered the district court to enter summary judgment for the Department of Labor. On September 14, 2015, the Department of Labor announced that it would not bring enforcement actions against any employer for violations of the new rule for 30 days after issuance of the mandate of the D.C. Circuit. On October 27, 2015, the Department of Labor said it would not begin enforcing the new rule until November 12, 2015. The State began paying overtime wages on February 1, 2016. Affirming in part, the panel held that the County of Los Angeles was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity. The panel assumed without deciding that a county might be entitled to immunity if acting as an arm of the state. The panel held that, under the five-part Mitchell test, the County was not an arm of the State when it administered the IHSS program because the state-treasury factor, which is the most important, and all but one of the other Mitchell factors weighed against immunity. The panel held that a later Supreme Court case, Hess v. Port Auth. Trans-Hudson Corp., 513 U.S. 30 (1994), did not undermine Mitchell such that it should be overruled. Reversing in part, the panel held that the effective date of the Department of Labor’s rule was January 1, 2015, because the legal effect of the D.C. Circuit’s vacatur was to reinstate the original effective date. The panel held that the Department of Labor’s choice against enforcing the rule until November 12, 2015, did not eliminate the availability of private rights of action until that date. Accordingly, the beginning of the putative collective period was January 1, 2015. 4 RAY V. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on October 8, 2019.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.