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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO

GLORIA REYES, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, and on behalf of the State of California,

Plaintiff,

VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive,

Defendants.

Case No. CIVSB-2025-04781

DEFENDANT VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP.'S DEMURRER TO PLAINTIFF'S SIXTH AND SEVENTH CAUSES OF ACTION AND MOTION TO STRIKE PORTIONS OF THE COMPLAINT

Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) Bernard Crawford (SBN 198604) James Underwood (SBN 312756) Devon Archer (SBN 334189) CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP 633 West Fifth Street, Suite 4400 Los Angeles, California 90071 Telephone: (213) 629-8400 Facsimile: (213) 629-8401

Email: rvasquez@calderwoodharkness.com

Elena Garza (SBN 289073) WHITFIELD GARZA LLP 290 North D Street, Suite 510 San Bernardino, California 92401 Telephone: (909) 884-5100 Facsimile: (909) 884-5101

Email: egarza@whitfieldgarza.com

Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.

NOTICE OF DEMURRER AND MOTION TO STRIKE

TO PLAINTIFF GLORIA REYES AND HER ATTORNEYS OF RECORD, VICTOR LOZANO AND MICHELLE TRAN, NAKAMURA LOZANO & PRATT LLP, 350 SOUTH GRAND AVENUE, SUITE 2800, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90071:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. ("VMS" or "Defendant"), by and through its counsel of record, Calderwood & Harkness LLP and Whitfield Garza LLP, hereby demurs to the Sixth Cause of Action (Violation of the Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq.) and the Seventh Cause of Action (Violation of the Private Attorneys General Act, Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) of the Complaint filed by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes ("Plaintiff") on August 1, 2025 in the above-captioned action, on the following grounds:

Grounds for Demurrer (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 430.10(e)):

1. The Sixth Cause of Action for violation of the Unfair Competition Law ("UCL"), California Business and Professions Code section 17200 et seq., fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against Defendant VMS. The UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code causes of action, fails to allege independent factual support for the "unfair" prong of section 17200, and improperly seeks duplicative relief already available under the Labor Code.

2. The Seventh Cause of Action for civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act ("PAGA"), California Labor Code section 2698 et seq., fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against Defendant VMS. Plaintiff lacks standing to assert representative PAGA claims for violations she did not personally experience, and the Complaint fails to allege compliance with the mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirements of California Labor Code section 2699.3(a) as to each discrete category of violation alleged.

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that, concurrently with the foregoing demurrer, Defendant VMS moves to strike certain class allegations contained in the Complaint, pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure sections 435, 436, and 437, on the following grounds:

Grounds for Motion to Strike (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §§ 435, 436(a)–(b)):

3. The class allegations in the Complaint, insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations under California Labor Code section 226.7, constitute irrelevant, false, or improper matter within the meaning of California Code of Civil Procedure section 436, subdivisions (a) and (b). The Complaint's own factual allegations demonstrate that the putative class of approximately 3,550 current and former non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant lacks the commonality and typicality necessary for class treatment of rest break claims, given the materially different rest break conditions across six distinct production lines and two separate shifts.

This Demurrer and Motion to Strike are based upon this Notice, the accompanying Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Declaration of James Underwood filed concurrently herewith, the Request for Judicial Notice filed concurrently herewith, all pleadings, records, and papers on file in this action, and such oral and documentary evidence and argument as the Court may consider at the time of the hearing.

The hearing on this Demurrer and Motion to Strike will be held on a date and at a time to be determined by the Court, in a department to be assigned, at the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, located at 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, California 92415.

Respectfully submitted,

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

Dated: September 11, 2025

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

By: ________

Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.

MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES

I. INTRODUCTION. This is a putative wage-and-hour class action and PAGA representative action brought by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes ("Plaintiff" or "Reyes"), a former Production Associate who worked on Trim Line B during the second shift (2:00 PM to 10:30 PM) at Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.'s manufacturing facility located at 11780 Cherry Avenue, Fontana, California 92337 (the "Fontana Plant"). Plaintiff filed her Complaint on August 1, 2025, asserting seven causes of action against VMS arising from alleged meal and rest break violations, unpaid wages, inaccurate wage statements, and waiting time penalties, together with derivative claims under the Unfair Competition Law and the Private Attorneys General Act. Through this demurrer and concurrent motion to strike, Defendant VMS challenges two of those seven causes of action and a discrete set of class allegations that are legally deficient on their face.

Defendant VMS is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 4200 Industrial Parkway, Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326, and is registered to do business in the State of California. The Fontana Plant is a specialty vehicle modification facility where wheelchair-accessible vans and fleet vehicles are manufactured and upfitted. The Fontana Plant employs approximately 1,450 non-exempt hourly production employees at any given time, distributed across two shifts and six production lines. Over the proposed class period — August 4, 2021 through the date of trial — approximately 3,550 unique individuals have been employed at the Fontana Plant, reflecting the facility's annual turnover rate of approximately 38 percent.

Plaintiff Gloria Reyes was employed at the Fontana Plant from March 12, 2021 through January 19, 2025. She worked on Trim Line B during the second shift and earned an hourly wage of $22.75 at the time of her separation. Plaintiff's employment was limited to a single production line and a single shift throughout her tenure. Despite this limited experience, Plaintiff seeks to represent a sprawling class encompassing every non-exempt hourly employee at the Fontana Plant, across all six production lines and both shifts, and to pursue PAGA penalties on behalf of the State for the full panoply of Labor Code violations — including violations she never personally experienced and for which she cannot establish standing.

Defendant VMS brings this demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action (UCL) and the Seventh Cause of Action (PAGA) on the ground that each fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action under California Code of Civil Procedure section 430.10(e). The UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code claims, fails to allege any independent factual basis for the "unfair" prong, and improperly seeks duplicative relief. The PAGA claim suffers from fundamental standing deficiencies and inadequate pre-suit exhaustion.

Concurrently, Defendant VMS moves to strike the class allegations relating to the Second Cause of Action (rest period violations) because the Complaint's own factual allegations reveal that class treatment of rest break claims is improper. The Fontana Plant's six production lines operate under materially different conditions, the two shifts are managed by different supervisors with different scheduling practices, and Plaintiff's allegations of "surge"-period rest break denial are inherently individualized inquiries that cannot be resolved on a class-wide basis. These class allegations constitute improper matter that should be stricken under Code of Civil Procedure sections 435 and 436.

Importantly, this demurrer does not challenge the First through Fifth Causes of Action on their merits, and the motion to strike does not target the class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action for meal period violations, which are predicated on the arguably uniform automatic meal period deduction feature of the ApexTime timekeeping system. VMS reserves all defenses to those claims. The present motion is narrowly tailored to address the legal insufficiency of the PAGA and UCL claims and the facial impropriety of the rest break class allegations.

II. STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS

For purposes of this demurrer, Defendant VMS accepts as true the material facts properly pleaded in the Complaint. The following statement of relevant facts is drawn from the face of the Complaint and from matters subject to judicial notice.

A. The Fontana Plant Operations. VMS operates the Fontana Plant for the purpose of manufacturing and modifying specialty vehicles, including wheelchair-accessible vans and fleet vehicle upfitting. The Fontana Plant is a substantial industrial facility situated on approximately fourteen acres in the city of Fontana, San Bernardino County, California. The plant runs two production shifts each day: the First Shift, which operates from 5:00 AM to 1:30 PM, and the Second Shift, which operates from 2:00 PM to 10:30 PM. Each standard shift is eight and one-half hours in duration, inclusive of a scheduled thirty-minute unpaid meal period. The First Shift's meal period is scheduled at 9:00 AM, and the Second Shift's meal period is scheduled at 6:00 PM.

The Fontana Plant's production operations are organized across six distinct production lines: Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, Trim Line B, Paint, and Final Assembly/Quality Control ("Final Assembly/QC"). Each production line has its own workflow characteristics, staffing requirements, supervisor structure, and production cycle timing. The nature of the work performed on each line varies considerably — for example, the Paint line involves spray booth operations with environmental and safety protocols that differ materially from the manual assembly work performed on the Trim Lines, and the Final Assembly/QC line operates under quality control inspection protocols with distinct scheduling demands. These operational differences directly affect when and how rest breaks are authorized, scheduled, and taken by employees on each respective line.

During periods of elevated demand, the Fontana Plant may schedule overtime or "surge" shifts that can extend to twelve hours. Under California Labor Code section 512, a twelve-hour shift triggers an employee's entitlement to a second thirty-minute meal period and, under applicable Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders, a third paid ten-minute rest break. The frequency, duration, and intensity of surge periods vary across production lines and across the class period, depending on customer orders, production backlogs, and supply chain conditions.

The Fontana Plant's rest break policy, as set forth in the Employee Handbook, provides for two paid ten-minute rest breaks per standard eight-hour shift and three paid ten-minute rest breaks per twelve-hour shift, in compliance with applicable California law. The specific timing of rest breaks varies by production line and is determined by the line supervisor in coordination with production scheduling requirements.

At any given time, the Fontana Plant employs approximately 1,450 non-exempt hourly production employees. The facility's annual turnover rate is approximately 38 percent, a figure consistent with industry norms for automotive manufacturing. Over the proposed class period of August 4, 2021 through the anticipated date of trial, an estimated 3,550 unique individuals have been employed at the Fontana Plant in non-exempt hourly production positions.

B. Timekeeping System and Auto-Deduction Policy. The Fontana Plant uses an electronic timekeeping system designated ApexTime 6.2, provided by Apex Workforce Solutions, Inc. Employees clock in and clock out using badge-swipe terminals located at designated stations on the plant floor. The ApexTime system records clock-in and clock-out times and calculates hours worked for payroll purposes.

From January 2020 through March 15, 2024, the Fontana Plant employed an automatic thirty-minute meal period deduction feature within the ApexTime system. Under this auto-deduction protocol, if an employee did not affirmatively clock out and clock back in for the scheduled meal period, the ApexTime system would automatically deduct thirty minutes from the employee's recorded hours worked for that shift. The auto-deduction applied uniformly to all non-exempt hourly employees across all production lines and both shifts.

On February 8, 2024, Sandra Olsen, VMS's Vice President of Human Resources, authored an internal memorandum documenting the results of an internal HR audit of timekeeping practices at the Fontana Plant. Following that audit, VMS voluntarily discontinued the auto-deduction feature effective March 15, 2024. A corrective action memorandum was issued by plant management on March 10, 2024, directing all supervisors and timekeeping administrators to transition to a manual clock-out/clock-in protocol for meal periods. Since March 15, 2024, all employees have been required to manually clock out at the beginning of their meal period and manually clock back in at its conclusion.

Additionally, the ApexTime system employs a rounding policy pursuant to which clock-in and clock-out punches are rounded to the nearest six-minute increment (i.e., one-tenth of an hour). This rounding protocol has been in effect throughout the class period.

C. Employee Handbook and Compliance Policies. The Fontana Plant Employee Handbook, most recently revised in June 2022, contains a written Meal and Rest Break Policy at Section 4.3. That policy states that VMS authorizes and permits all non-exempt employees to take meal and rest breaks in accordance with California law and applicable Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders. The policy further states that employees should notify their immediate supervisor if they are unable to take or complete any meal or rest break for any reason.

Supervisor training materials addressing meal and rest break compliance were last updated in September 2023. These training materials were distributed to all line supervisors and shift managers at the Fontana Plant. The Fontana Plant Manager during the relevant period has been Marcus Gutierrez.

D. Plaintiff's PAGA Notice and Procedural History. On May 22, 2025, Plaintiff served a PAGA notice on the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency ("LWDA") and on Vantage Mobility Systems Corp., pursuant to California Labor Code section 2699.3(a). The LWDA assigned the notice case number LWDA-CM-2025-831447. Plaintiff's PAGA notice purports to assert penalties for all seven categories of Labor Code violations alleged in the Complaint on behalf of all non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. The notice was filed through the LWDA's online submission portal.

The sixty-five-day period prescribed by California Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(2)(A) for the LWDA to commence an investigation expired on July 26, 2025. The LWDA did not initiate an investigation or notify VMS or Plaintiff of any intent to investigate during the statutory period. A true and correct copy of the PAGA notice and the LWDA case record reflecting the absence of any investigation are authenticated in the Declaration of James Underwood filed concurrently herewith and are the subject of a concurrent Request for Judicial Notice.

Plaintiff filed her Complaint in this action on August 1, 2025 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, and the matter was assigned Case Number CIVSB-2025-04781. VMS was served with the Summons and Complaint on August 12, 2025 through CT Agents, Inc., its registered agent for service of process in California, located at 818 West Seventh Street, Suite 930, Sacramento, California 95814. Defendant's responsive pleading deadline is September 11, 2025, thirty days from the date of service.

E. The Seven Causes of Action. Plaintiff's Complaint asserts seven causes of action against VMS, as follows:

• First Cause of Action: Meal Period Violations (Cal. Lab. Code §§ 226.7, 512)

• Second Cause of Action: Rest Period Violations (Cal. Lab. Code § 226.7)

• Third Cause of Action: Unpaid Wages (Cal. Lab. Code §§ 204, 1194)

• Fourth Cause of Action: Inaccurate Wage Statements (Cal. Lab. Code § 226)

• Fifth Cause of Action: Waiting Time Penalties (Cal. Lab. Code § 203)

• Sixth Cause of Action: Unfair Business Practices (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200) — subject of this demurrer

• Seventh Cause of Action: PAGA Penalties (Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) — subject of this demurrer

The present motion challenges only the Sixth and Seventh Causes of Action on demurrer and seeks to strike the class allegations insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations.

III. LEGAL STANDARD FOR DEMURRER

A demurrer tests the legal sufficiency of the factual allegations in a complaint. California Code of Civil Procedure section 430.10, subdivision (e), provides that a party may demur to a complaint on the ground that it "does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action." In ruling on a demurrer, the court treats all material facts properly pleaded as true, but does not accept as true contentions, deductions, or conclusions of fact or law. (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.) The court reads the complaint as a whole and its parts in their context, giving the complaint a reasonable interpretation. (Ibid.)

However, a complaint must allege sufficient factual matter to state a cause of action; conclusory allegations and legal conclusions masquerading as factual allegations are insufficient to withstand demurrer. (Rakestraw v. California Physicians' Service (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 39, 43 ["[T]he complaint must contain sufficient facts to state a cause of action; each evidentiary fact that might eventually form part of the plaintiff's proof need not be alleged."].) A demurrer should be sustained where the complaint fails to allege facts establishing every element of the cause of action. (Ibid.)

In addition to the facts alleged in the complaint, the court may consider matters subject to judicial notice under California Evidence Code sections 452 and 453. Matters properly subject to judicial notice include official acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the United States and of any state, as well as records of any court of this state. (Cal. Evid. Code § 452, subds. (c), (d).)

IV. DEMURRER TO THE SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION — PAGA (CAL. LAB. CODE § 2698 ET SEQ.)

A. Legal Framework for PAGA Standing. The Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, codified at California Labor Code section 2698 et seq., authorizes an "aggrieved employee" to bring a civil action on behalf of the State of California for the recovery of civil penalties for violations of the Labor Code. (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(a).) PAGA was enacted to supplement the enforcement capabilities of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency by deputizing private employees to act as agents of the State. The statute serves an important public purpose, but it is not without limits — most notably, the standing requirement that tethers a plaintiff's representative authority to violations she has personally experienced.

An "aggrieved employee" is defined by statute as "any person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed." (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(c).) The California Supreme Court has interpreted this standing requirement in Kim v. Reins International California, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 73, holding that a PAGA plaintiff must demonstrate that she personally suffered each type of violation for which she seeks to assert representative standing. (Id. at pp. 83–84.) As the Court explained, "a plaintiff who has suffered at least one Labor Code violation may seek PAGA penalties on behalf of other employees who suffered the same type of violation, but may not serve as a representative for violations she did not personally experience." (Id. at p. 84.)

The significance of Kim has been reinforced and codified by the 2024 amendments to PAGA, enacted through Assembly Bill 2288 and effective July 1, 2024. Those amendments clarify and strengthen the standing requirements for PAGA claims, confirming that a plaintiff's representative authority is coextensive with — and limited to — the violations she personally experienced. Because Plaintiff's Complaint was filed on August 1, 2025, well after the effective date of the 2024 amendments, the amended standing requirements apply in full to this action.

Furthermore, PAGA imposes mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirements. Before filing a PAGA action, a plaintiff must provide written notice to the LWDA and to the employer identifying "the specific provisions of [the Labor Code] alleged to have been violated, including the facts and theories to support the alleged violation." (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699.3(a)(1)(A).) This exhaustion requirement is a prerequisite to suit, and it must be satisfied as to each discrete category of violation alleged.

B. Plaintiff's PAGA Notice Is Deficient as to Certain Violations. Plaintiff's PAGA notice (LWDA No. LWDA-CM-2025-831447), served on the LWDA and VMS on May 22, 2025, purports to assert penalties for all seven categories of Labor Code violations on behalf of all non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. The notice is attached as Exhibit A to the Declaration of James Underwood and is the subject of Defendant's concurrent Request for Judicial Notice.

A review of the PAGA notice reveals that it identifies the categories of alleged violations in broad, general terms — reciting the relevant Labor Code provisions and asserting that "Defendant systematically failed to provide compliant meal periods, rest periods, and accurate wage statements to Plaintiff and all similarly situated non-exempt employees." The notice, however, lacks the factual specificity required by Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(1)(A) as to several discrete categories of violations. In particular:

Second meal period violations. The PAGA notice asserts that VMS failed to provide second meal periods on shifts exceeding ten hours. However, Plaintiff Gloria Reyes worked a standard 8.5-hour shift on Trim Line B. The notice does not identify any specific occasion on which Plaintiff personally worked a shift exceeding ten hours and was denied a second meal period. It does not identify the dates, frequency, or circumstances of any such violation as to Plaintiff herself, nor does it identify the particular production lines or shifts where second meal period violations allegedly occurred. The notice's assertion of second meal period violations is conclusory and unsupported by the particularized factual showing required for adequate PAGA exhaustion.

Rounding-based underpayment. The PAGA notice references VMS's use of the ApexTime rounding protocol, which rounds clock-in and clock-out punches to the nearest six-minute increment. The notice asserts in generalized terms that the rounding policy "systematically resulted in unpaid work time." However, the notice does not identify any specific instance in which Plaintiff's own compensable work time was reduced as a result of rounding, nor does it provide any factual basis for concluding that the rounding policy operated to Plaintiff's detriment rather than to her benefit over the class period. Without such particularized facts, the PAGA notice fails to satisfy the exhaustion requirement as to rounding-based underpayment claims.

Wage statement inaccuracies beyond meal/rest break claims. The PAGA notice asserts violations of Labor Code section 226 (inaccurate wage statements) but does so in purely derivative terms, tying the alleged wage statement deficiencies to the underlying meal and rest break violations. To the extent Plaintiff seeks PAGA penalties for wage statement violations independent of the meal and rest break claims — for example, inaccuracies in the reporting of total hours worked due to rounding — the notice does not provide the required factual specificity.

The sixty-five-day cure period expired on July 26, 2025, without the LWDA commencing an investigation. (See Exhibit B to the Underwood Decl.) While the absence of LWDA action entitles Plaintiff to proceed with suit, it does not cure the underlying deficiencies in the PAGA notice itself. The adequacy of the PAGA notice is evaluated as of the date it was served, not as of the date the cure period expired. A deficient PAGA notice cannot be retroactively rehabilitated by the mere passage of time.

C. Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Assert PAGA Claims for Violations She Did Not Personally Experience. Plaintiff's Complaint is replete with sweeping allegations that VMS violated the Labor Code as to "all" non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. But Plaintiff Gloria Reyes was employed on a single production line — Trim Line B — during a single shift — the second shift. Her individual allegations, to the extent they are particularized at all, focus on two categories of alleged harm: (i) being required to remain at her workstation during meal periods due to production quotas imposed by her Trim Line B supervisor, and (ii) experiencing shortened or denied rest breaks during intermittent "surge" production periods on Trim Line B.

Plaintiff does not allege — because she cannot allege — that she personally experienced each of the categories of violations for which she seeks to recover PAGA penalties on behalf of the State. Specifically:

Second meal period violations. Plaintiff's standard shift was 8.5 hours. The Complaint does not allege that Plaintiff regularly or even occasionally worked shifts exceeding ten hours that would trigger entitlement to a second meal period. Without personal experience of a second meal period violation, Plaintiff cannot serve as a PAGA representative for employees who did work extended shifts and allegedly were denied second meal periods.

Rounding-based underpayment. The Complaint does not contain any particularized allegation that the ApexTime rounding protocol resulted in a net loss of compensable time to Plaintiff over the course of her employment. Under well-established California law, a rounding policy is lawful if it is facially neutral and, over time, does not consistently result in underpayment. Plaintiff's failure to allege that the rounding policy harmed her individually means she cannot assert PAGA standing for rounding-related claims.

Violations unique to other production lines and first shift. The Complaint treats the Fontana Plant's workforce as monolithic, but the six production lines and two shifts operate under materially different conditions. Plaintiff has no personal knowledge of, and no standing to assert PAGA claims based upon, violations that occurred on Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, the Paint line, the Final Assembly/QC line, or the first shift. The conditions on Trim Line B during the second shift are specific to that line and that shift, and Plaintiff's experience there does not vest her with representative authority to prosecute PAGA claims for violations she never experienced on other lines or shifts.

Under Kim v. Reins International California, Inc., supra, 9 Cal.5th at pages 83–84, and the 2024 PAGA amendments, Plaintiff must have personally suffered each type of violation to have representative standing. She cannot bootstrap violations she did not experience. To the extent the Seventh Cause of Action encompasses PAGA claims for second meal period violations, rounding-based underpayment, and other violations Plaintiff did not personally suffer, those claims must be dismissed for lack of standing.

The Complaint's formulaic recitation that "Plaintiff was subject to each of the violations described herein" is a legal conclusion, not a factual allegation, and must be disregarded on demurrer. (Blank v. Kirwan, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 318; Rakestraw, supra, 81 Cal.App.4th at p. 43.) Stripped of its conclusory language, the Complaint reveals that Plaintiff's actual, particularized allegations of personal harm are limited to meal break violations on Trim Line B and rest break shortening during surge periods — also on Trim Line B. The Seventh Cause of Action reaches far beyond these limited personal experiences and, to that extent, is legally deficient.

D. The PAGA Claim Fails to Allege Compliance with Exhaustion Requirements for All Violations. As set forth above, PAGA imposes a mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirement: a plaintiff must serve written notice on the LWDA and the employer specifying the particular Labor Code provisions alleged to have been violated, together with the facts and theories supporting each alleged violation. (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699.3(a)(1)(A).) This exhaustion requirement is jurisdictional in nature and must be satisfied as to each discrete category of violation.

Plaintiff's PAGA notice must be evaluated for adequacy as to each discrete violation alleged in the Seventh Cause of Action. As demonstrated in Section IV.B above, the PAGA notice lacks the factual specificity required to exhaust certain categories of violations, including second meal period violations, rounding-based underpayment, and independent wage statement inaccuracies. To the extent the PAGA cause of action is predicated on violations for which the PAGA notice failed to provide a sufficient factual foundation, the claim is not properly exhausted and must be dismissed.

Defendant does not contend that the PAGA notice is deficient in all respects. To the extent the notice adequately identifies meal period violations arising from the auto-deduction policy and rest break violations during surge periods on Trim Line B — the categories of harm Plaintiff actually experienced — the exhaustion requirement may be satisfied as to those narrow categories. But the Seventh Cause of Action sweeps far more broadly, and its over-inclusive scope cannot be sustained on demurrer.

Accordingly, Defendant respectfully requests that the Court sustain the demurrer to the Seventh Cause of Action with leave to amend, limited to those violations for which Plaintiff can establish both personal standing and adequate PAGA notice exhaustion.

V. DEMURRER TO THE SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION — UCL (CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE § 17200)

A. Legal Framework for UCL Claims. California's Unfair Competition Law, codified at Business and Professions Code section 17200, prohibits "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice." The UCL establishes three distinct prongs — unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent — each of which provides an independent basis for relief. (Cel-Tech Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co. (1999) 20 Cal.4th 163, 180.) A plaintiff asserting a UCL claim must allege facts sufficient to state a cause of action under at least one of these three prongs.

Critically, the UCL does not create independent substantive liability. It "borrows" violations of other laws and treats them as unlawful business practices under the "unlawful" prong, and it evaluates conduct against standards of fairness and anti-competitive impact under the "unfair" prong. (Cel-Tech, supra, at p. 180.) The UCL's remedial scope is correspondingly limited: available relief is confined to injunctive relief and restitution. (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17203.) The UCL does not authorize the recovery of damages.

Plaintiff's Sixth Cause of Action invokes the UCL in general terms, alleging that VMS's meal and rest break practices constitute "unlawful" and "unfair" business practices within the meaning of section 17200. The Complaint does not allege a "fraudulent" prong theory. As demonstrated below, the UCL claim fails under both the "unlawful" and "unfair" prongs.

B. The "Unlawful" Prong Fails Because It Is Entirely Derivative. Plaintiff's UCL claim under the "unlawful" prong is predicated entirely on the underlying Labor Code violations alleged in the First through Fifth Causes of Action. The Complaint expressly incorporates by reference the factual allegations of the prior causes of action and alleges, in substance, that VMS's failure to provide compliant meal and rest breaks, pay all wages due, provide accurate wage statements, and pay timely final wages constitutes "unlawful" business practices.

The Complaint contains no independent factual allegations supporting the UCL claim beyond those already underlying the statutory Labor Code claims. This is not a case where the plaintiff has identified a business practice that, while not independently actionable under the Labor Code, nonetheless violates some other law or regulation that can serve as a predicate for UCL liability. Rather, the "unlawful" prong is simply a reformulation of the same statutory claims, dressed in UCL garb.

It is well established that a UCL "unlawful" prong claim that is entirely derivative of other statutory causes of action rises and falls with those underlying claims. (Krantz v. BT Visual Images, LLC (2001) 89 Cal.App.4th 164, 178.) Where the predicate statutory claims are themselves subject to demurrer or are otherwise deficient, the derivative UCL claim necessarily fails as well. And even where the predicate claims survive, a purely derivative UCL claim adds nothing to the complaint — it provides no additional factual or legal theory beyond what the underlying causes of action already assert.

Here, to the extent that any of the underlying Labor Code claims are deficient — and Defendant reserves all defenses to those claims — the derivative UCL "unlawful" prong claim fails a fortiori. More fundamentally, even if all underlying claims survive, the "unlawful" prong adds nothing of substance to the Complaint. It is duplicative, insufficiently pled as an independent cause of action, and should be dismissed.

C. The "Unfair" Prong Lacks Sufficient Factual Allegations. The "unfair" prong of the UCL imposes a more demanding pleading standard than the "unlawful" prong. Under Cel-Tech Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co., supra, 20 Cal.4th at page 187, a business practice is "unfair" within the meaning of section 17200 if it is conduct that "threatens an incipient violation of an antitrust law, or violates the policy or spirit of one of those laws because its effects are comparable to or the same as a violation of the law, or otherwise significantly threatens or harms competition."

While the precise contours of the "unfair" prong remain the subject of ongoing judicial development, courts consistently require that the alleged unfairness be "tethered to some legislatively declared policy or proof of some actual or threatened impact on competition." (Cel-Tech, supra, at p. 187; see also Lozano v. Camberwell Enterprises Wireless Services, Inc. (2007) 504 F.3d 718, 736 [applying California law and requiring tethering to legislative policy].) Alternatively, some courts have applied a balancing test that requires a showing that the gravity of harm to the victim outweighs the utility of the defendant's conduct. (Motors, Inc. v. Times Mirror Co. (1980) 102 Cal.App.3d 735, 740.) Under either formulation, a plaintiff must plead specific facts demonstrating why the challenged conduct is "unfair" in a manner distinct from and independent of any predicate statutory violation.

Plaintiff's Complaint fails this standard. The Sixth Cause of Action contains conclusory allegations that VMS's meal and rest break practices constitute "unfair" business practices, but it does not allege any of the following:

• Any anti-competitive effect of VMS's challenged practices;

• Any impact on competition in the automotive manufacturing or specialty vehicle modification industry;

• Any conduct that is "unfair" in any manner distinct from the statutory violations already alleged under the Labor Code;

• Any legislative policy that VMS's practices threaten or undermine beyond the Labor Code provisions already invoked in the First through Fifth Causes of Action;

• Any specific factual basis for a balancing-test analysis demonstrating that the gravity of harm outweighs the utility of VMS's conduct.

In essence, the "unfair" prong allegations simply repackage the "unlawful" prong allegations, which in turn simply repackage the underlying Labor Code claims. This recursive pleading approach does not satisfy the independent factual pleading requirement for the "unfair" prong. Under Cel-Tech, a plaintiff cannot sustain an "unfair" prong claim merely by alleging that the defendant's conduct is unlawful — the plaintiff must demonstrate some additional dimension of unfairness beyond mere illegality. Plaintiff has not done so, and the "unfair" prong fails for lack of sufficient factual allegations.

D. The UCL Claim Improperly Seeks Duplicative Relief. Even if the "unlawful" or "unfair" prong could be sustained — and Defendant submits it cannot — the Sixth Cause of Action must be dismissed because it seeks only duplicative relief.

UCL remedies are limited to injunctive relief and restitution. (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17203.) The "restitution" sought by Plaintiff under the UCL overlaps entirely with the meal and rest break premium pay sought under the First and Second Causes of Action pursuant to California Labor Code section 226.7. Meal and rest break premiums under section 226.7 are "wages" under California law, and the recovery of those wages under the Labor Code causes of action renders the UCL restitution claim wholly duplicative.

The California Supreme Court addressed the scope of UCL restitution in Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Products Co. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 163, 177–178, holding that restitution under the UCL is limited to the return of money or property to the plaintiff that the defendant has wrongfully acquired. Here, Plaintiff has not alleged any distinct restitutionary interest that is not already recoverable under the Labor Code causes of action. The unpaid wages, premium payments, and penalties sought in the First through Fifth Causes of Action encompass the full universe of monetary recovery available to Plaintiff. The UCL restitution claim does not identify any additional category of money or property wrongfully acquired by VMS that is not already the subject of a Labor Code claim.

As for injunctive relief, Plaintiff's prayer for relief under the UCL seeks an injunction requiring VMS to "comply with California meal and rest break laws." This is indistinguishable from the compliance relief that would flow from a judgment in Plaintiff's favor on the underlying Labor Code claims and does not constitute an independent basis for maintaining a separate cause of action.

Accordingly, Defendant respectfully requests that the Court sustain the demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action without leave to amend, as amendment cannot cure the fundamental deficiency of a derivative and duplicative UCL claim. In the alternative, Defendant requests that the Court sustain the demurrer with leave to amend solely as to the "unfair" prong, conditioned on Plaintiff's ability to allege independent factual allegations demonstrating unfairness distinct from the predicate statutory violations.

VI. MOTION TO STRIKE CLASS ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO REST BREAK CLAIMS (SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION)

A. Legal Standard for Motion to Strike. California Code of Civil Procedure section 435 authorizes a party to move to strike "irrelevant, false, or improper matter" from a pleading. Section 436 provides that the court may, upon motion or at any time in its discretion: (a) strike out any irrelevant, false, or improper matter inserted in any pleading; or (b) strike out all or any part of any pleading not drawn or filed in conformity with the laws of this state, a court rule, or an order of the court.

A motion to strike is not the typical vehicle for challenging class certification, which ordinarily proceeds through a motion for or against class certification under Code of Civil Procedure section 382 following the completion of discovery. However, California courts have recognized that a motion to strike may properly target class allegations where the complaint reveals on its face that the requirements for class treatment cannot be met. (Bemis v. People (1955) 133 Cal.App.2d 458; In re Tobacco II Cases (2009) 46 Cal.4th 298; Lazar v. Hertz Corp. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 1494, 1502.) As the Court of Appeal explained in Lazar, "[w]here the defect in the class allegations is revealed on the face of the complaint, a defendant may properly challenge those allegations by way of a motion to strike." (Id. at p. 1502.)

The motion to strike is a narrow tool, and Defendant VMS invokes it here with precision. Defendant does not seek to strike all class allegations in the Complaint; it seeks to strike only those class allegations that relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations. The meal break class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action, which are predicated on the arguably uniform auto-deduction policy in the ApexTime system, are not targeted by this motion. Defendant reserves all defenses to those allegations, including the right to oppose class certification on a full evidentiary record.

B. Plaintiff's Rest Break Class Allegations Lack Commonality and Typicality on Their Face. The Complaint defines the proposed class as "all current and former non-exempt hourly employees who worked at the Fontana Plant at any time from August 4, 2021 through the date of trial." This class definition encompasses approximately 3,550 unique individuals across six production lines, two shifts, and a four-year class period. Plaintiff asserts that this sprawling class shares common questions of law and fact regarding rest break practices at the Fontana Plant. The Complaint's own allegations demonstrate otherwise.

##### 1. The Six Production Lines Have Materially Different Rest Break Conditions

The Fontana Plant operates six distinct production lines: Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, Trim Line B, Paint, and Final Assembly/QC. As alleged in the Complaint and as is apparent from the nature of the Fontana Plant's operations, each production line has different workflow characteristics, staffing levels, supervisor structures, and production cycle timing. The nature of the work performed on each line varies considerably — from spray booth operations on the Paint line, which involve environmental controls and safety protocols that dictate break timing, to manual assembly work on the Trim Lines, to quality control inspections on the Final Assembly/QC line.

These operational differences directly and materially affect when and how rest breaks are authorized, scheduled, and taken. The Complaint does not allege — and could not allege — that a single, uniform rest break policy was applied identically across all six production lines. Rather, the Complaint alleges in generic terms that "Defendant failed to authorize and permit rest breaks" to "all" non-exempt employees at the Fontana Plant. This conclusory allegation treats the entire 1,450-employee workforce as monolithic, ignoring the material operational differences across lines that determine the specific rest break conditions experienced by each employee.

A class-wide adjudication of rest break claims would require individualized evidence about the specific conditions on each production line: the production cycle timing, the staffing levels, the supervisor practices, the physical layout of the work area (including the proximity of break areas to workstations), and the nature of the work being performed. These are not questions susceptible to common proof. They are inherently line-specific and supervisor-specific inquiries that would require the trier of fact to conduct what amounts to six separate mini-trials — one for each production line — each involving different witnesses, different evidence, and different factual contexts. This is precisely the type of fragmented adjudication that the commonality requirement is designed to prevent.

##### 2. Two Shifts Create Distinct Rest Break Environments

The Fontana Plant's two shifts — First Shift (5:00 AM to 1:30 PM) and Second Shift (2:00 PM to 10:30 PM) — operate under different management, different production demands, and different rest break scheduling practices. The First Shift and Second Shift are supervised by different shift managers, staffed by different employees, and subject to different production schedules and customer delivery deadlines. These structural differences create distinct rest break environments that cannot be meaningfully adjudicated through common proof.

Plaintiff Gloria Reyes worked exclusively on the Second Shift on Trim Line B throughout her tenure at the Fontana Plant. She has no personal knowledge of rest break practices on the First Shift — the supervisory directives issued to First Shift employees, the production demands that affected First Shift break timing, or the manner in which rest breaks were actually authorized and taken by First Shift workers. Plaintiff cannot serve as a typical class representative for the approximately 700 employees who worked the First Shift during the class period. Her experience on Trim Line B, Second Shift, is not representative of the experience of First Shift employees on any production line, and particularly not of First Shift employees on lines other than Trim Line B.

The Complaint does not allege any uniform policy of rest break denial applicable across both shifts. Instead, it relies on conclusory assertions of "systematic" violations, without identifying any specific policy, practice, or directive that operated uniformly across both shifts to deny or shorten rest breaks. The absence of any such allegation confirms that the rest break inquiry is shift-specific and not amenable to class treatment.

##### 3. "Surge" Period Allegations Are Inherently Individualized

The central factual predicate of Plaintiff's rest break claims is the allegation that rest breaks were shortened or denied during "surge" production periods. The Complaint alleges that during these periods of elevated demand, supervisors required employees to remain at their workstations or to shorten their rest breaks in order to meet production targets.

By their very nature, surge periods are intermittent, variable, and unpredictable. They vary in frequency, duration, and intensity across production lines and across the class period. A surge on Body Line A during a particular week does not necessarily coincide with a surge on Trim Line B or the Paint line during the same week. The production demands that trigger a surge — customer orders, supply chain disruptions, quality control issues, staffing shortages — are line-specific and time-specific.

Whether any individual employee's rest break was shortened or denied during a surge period is, therefore, an inherently individualized inquiry. It depends on the employee's production line, shift, dates of employment, the specific production demands at the time, the directives of the employee's immediate supervisor, and the employee's own conduct in response to those demands. This individualized nature is not merely a factual inference drawn by Defendant — it is apparent from the face of the Complaint itself. The Complaint's own characterization of surge-related rest break denial as occurring during "periods" of elevated demand, rather than pursuant to a standing, uniform policy, confirms that the alleged violations are episodic and fact-specific rather than systematic and class-wide.

The practical implications of this individualization are profound. To adjudicate rest break claims on a class-wide basis, the trier of fact would need to determine, for each of the approximately 3,550 class members, whether a surge period was in effect on that employee's production line during each of that employee's shifts throughout the class period, whether the surge resulted in a shortened or denied rest break, whether the supervisor directed the employee to skip or shorten the break or the employee made a voluntary choice, and whether the employee was otherwise provided an opportunity to take a compliant break. This is not class adjudication — it is 3,550 individual trials.

##### 4. Voluntary Break Patterns Further Defeat Commonality

VMS's Employee Handbook (Section 4.3, revised June 2022) authorizes and permits rest breaks in compliance with California law. The Complaint does not allege that VMS maintained a written policy prohibiting rest breaks or directing supervisors to deny rest breaks. To the contrary, the existence of a written policy authorizing compliant rest breaks means that any failure to take a rest break may be attributable to individual employee choice rather than employer compulsion.

Under California law, an employer satisfies its rest break obligation by "authorizing and permitting" rest breaks — the employer is not required to ensure that every employee actually takes the break. Whether any individual employee voluntarily chose not to take, or to shorten, a rest break is an individualized defense that cannot be resolved on a class-wide basis. The Complaint's allegation of "routine" shortening or denial of rest breaks — as distinguished from a uniform policy of prohibition — by its own terms requires employee-by-employee adjudication. Each employee's subjective motivation and actual conduct during the break period must be individually assessed.

This defense is not speculative. It is a well-recognized affirmative defense in California meal and rest break litigation, and its applicability to any given employee depends entirely on that employee's individual circumstances. The prevalence of voluntary break-skipping in a manufacturing environment — where employees may choose to continue working to complete a task, earn overtime, or avoid disrupting their workflow — further underscores the individualized nature of rest break claims.

C. The Class Allegations as to Rest Breaks Are Irrelevant and Improper. For the reasons set forth above, the Complaint's own allegations demonstrate that the proposed class cannot satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements for class treatment of rest break claims. The class allegations relating to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations therefore constitute "improper matter" within the meaning of California Code of Civil Procedure section 436.

Maintaining these allegations in the Complaint will generate unnecessary discovery burden and confusion. If the class allegations are permitted to stand, VMS will be obligated to respond to class discovery directed at rest break practices across all six production lines and both shifts — a massive undertaking that the Complaint's own allegations demonstrate is unwarranted. The discovery burden associated with class allegations that are facially improper is precisely the type of harm that a motion to strike is designed to prevent.

Defendant respectfully requests that the Court strike the class allegations in the Complaint insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations. Specifically, Defendant seeks to strike the class definition language in paragraph 14 of the Complaint as it relates to rest break claims, the commonality and typicality allegations in paragraphs 17 through 22 as they relate to rest break claims, and the class-wide rest break allegations in paragraphs 48 through 57 of the Second Cause of Action. These paragraphs, and any other paragraphs that assert class-wide rest break claims, should be stricken as irrelevant and improper.

D. Striking Class Allegations Does Not Prejudice Plaintiff's Individual Claims. Granting this motion will not deprive Plaintiff of her right to pursue her individual rest break claims. Plaintiff's allegations that she personally experienced shortened or denied rest breaks during surge periods on Trim Line B, Second Shift, will survive. She may prosecute those individual claims through trial.

Nor will this motion prevent other employees from pursuing their own claims. If individual employees on other production lines or shifts experienced rest break violations, they may file individual claims or seek to certify a narrower sub-class limited to employees who share common circumstances — for example, employees on a particular production line supervised by a particular manager who implemented a specific rest break practice. The motion to strike merely recognizes what the Complaint's own allegations make clear: a single, plant-wide class encompassing all 3,550 employees is not appropriate for rest break claims.

Finally, Defendant emphasizes that this motion does not target the class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action for meal period violations. Those allegations are predicated on the ApexTime auto-deduction policy, which applied uniformly to all non-exempt employees across all production lines and both shifts from January 2020 through March 15, 2024. Because the auto-deduction was a system-wide, technology-driven practice, it presents a qualitatively different commonality profile than the rest break claims, which depend on line-specific, shift-specific, and supervisor-specific practices. Defendant reserves all defenses to the meal break class allegations and to class certification generally.

VII. CONCLUSION AND PRAYER FOR RELIEF

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. respectfully requests that the Court enter the following orders:

1. Sustain the demurrer to the Seventh Cause of Action (PAGA, Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) with leave to amend, limited to those violations for which Plaintiff can establish personal standing under Kim v. Reins International California, Inc., supra, 9 Cal.5th 73, and the 2024 PAGA amendments, and for which Plaintiff can demonstrate adequate pre-suit exhaustion under Labor Code section 2699.3(a). Any amended PAGA claim should be confined to meal period violations arising from the auto-deduction policy and rest break violations on Trim Line B, Second Shift — the only categories of violations Plaintiff has alleged with particularity based on her personal experience.

2. Sustain the demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action (UCL, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200) without leave to amend, on the grounds that the UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code causes of action, fails to allege independent factual support for the "unfair" prong, and seeks only duplicative relief. In the alternative, if the Court is inclined to grant leave to amend, Defendant requests that leave be granted solely as to the "unfair" prong, conditioned on Plaintiff's ability to allege independent factual allegations demonstrating unfairness distinct from the predicate statutory violations.

3. Grant the motion to strike the class allegations in the Complaint insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations, including but not limited to the class definition language in paragraph 14 (as applied to rest break claims), the commonality and typicality allegations in paragraphs 17 through 22 (as applied to rest break claims), and the class-wide rest break allegations in paragraphs 48 through 57 of the Second Cause of Action.

4. Award Defendant its costs incurred in connection with this motion and grant such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

Respectfully submitted,

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

Dated: September 11, 2025

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

By: ________

Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) 633 West Fifth Street, Suite 4400 Los Angeles, California 90071 Telephone: (213) 629-8400 Facsimile: (213) 629-8401

Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO

GLORIA REYES, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, and on behalf of the State of California,

Plaintiff,

VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive,

Defendants.

Case No. CIVSB-2025-04781

DECLARATION OF JAMES UNDERWOOD IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT'S DEMURRER TO PLAINTIFF'S SIXTH AND SEVENTH CAUSES OF ACTION AND MOTION TO STRIKE PORTIONS OF THE COMPLAINT

I, James Underwood, declare as follows:

1. I am an attorney duly licensed to practice law in the State of California. I am a member of the State Bar of California, Bar Number 312756, and I am currently in good standing. I am a lead associate at Calderwood & Harkness LLP, counsel of record for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. ("VMS" or "Defendant") in the above-captioned action. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth in this declaration, except where stated on information and belief, and if called as a witness, I could and would competently testify thereto.

2. I submit this declaration in support of Defendant VMS's Demurrer to Plaintiff's Sixth and Seventh Causes of Action and Motion to Strike Portions of the Complaint, filed concurrently herewith.

3. Attached hereto as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of the PAGA notice served by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes on the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency ("LWDA") and on Vantage Mobility Systems Corp., dated May 22, 2025. The LWDA assigned this notice case number LWDA-CM-2025-831447. I obtained this copy from VMS's files, where it was maintained in the ordinary course of business following receipt of service. The PAGA notice was received by VMS's registered agent for service of process, CT Agents, Inc., on or about May 24, 2025 and was forwarded to VMS's legal department on May 27, 2025.

4. Attached hereto as Exhibit B is a true and correct printout of the LWDA's online case record for LWDA Case Number LWDA-CM-2025-831447, reflecting that no investigation was commenced by the LWDA during the sixty-five-day period prescribed by California Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(2)(A). The sixty-five-day period commenced on May 22, 2025, the date the PAGA notice was served, and expired on July 26, 2025. I accessed this record through the LWDA's publicly available online case management portal on September 8, 2025. The case record confirms that as of September 8, 2025, the status of the PAGA notice remains "No Investigation Initiated — Cure Period Expired." Defendant VMS requests the Court take judicial notice of this official record of a state agency pursuant to California Evidence Code section 452, subdivision (c).

5. Attached hereto as Exhibit C are true and correct copies of relevant excerpts of the Complaint filed by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes on August 1, 2025 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, Case Number CIVSB-2025-04781. Specifically, Exhibit C includes the following portions of the Complaint:

(a) Paragraphs 1 through 13 (general allegations and party identification);

(b) Paragraph 14 (proposed class definition);

(d) Paragraphs 48 through 57 (Second Cause of Action — Rest Period Violations);

(e) Paragraphs 72 through 81 (Sixth Cause of Action — Unfair Business Practices under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200);

(f) Paragraphs 82 through 95 (Seven

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO
GLORIA REYES, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, and on behalf of the State of California,
Plaintiff,
v.
VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive,
Defendants.
Case No. CIVSB-2025-04781
DEFENDANT VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP.'S DEMURRER TO PLAINTIFF'S SIXTH AND SEVENTH CAUSES OF ACTION AND MOTION TO STRIKE PORTIONS OF THE COMPLAINT
Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) Bernard Crawford (SBN 198604) James Underwood (SBN 312756) Devon Archer (SBN 334189) CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP 633 West Fifth Street, Suite 4400 Los Angeles, California 90071 Telephone: (213) 629-8400 Facsimile: (213) 629-8401
Email: rvasquez@calderwoodharkness.com
Elena Garza (SBN 289073) WHITFIELD GARZA LLP 290 North D Street, Suite 510 San Bernardino, California 92401 Telephone: (909) 884-5100 Facsimile: (909) 884-5101
Email: egarza@whitfieldgarza.com
Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.
NOTICE OF DEMURRER AND MOTION TO STRIKE
TO PLAINTIFF GLORIA REYES AND HER ATTORNEYS OF RECORD, VICTOR LOZANO AND MICHELLE TRAN, NAKAMURA LOZANO & PRATT LLP, 350 SOUTH GRAND AVENUE, SUITE 2800, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90071:
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. ("VMS" or "Defendant"), by and through its counsel of record, Calderwood & Harkness LLP and Whitfield Garza LLP, hereby demurs to the Sixth Cause of Action (Violation of the Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq.) and the Seventh Cause of Action (Violation of the Private Attorneys General Act, Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) of the Complaint filed by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes ("Plaintiff") on August 1, 2025 in the above-captioned action, on the following grounds:
Grounds for Demurrer (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 430.10(e)):
1. The Sixth Cause of Action for violation of the Unfair Competition Law ("UCL"), California Business and Professions Code section 17200 et seq., fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against Defendant VMS. The UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code causes of action, fails to allege independent factual support for the "unfair" prong of section 17200, and improperly seeks duplicative relief already available under the Labor Code.
2. The Seventh Cause of Action for civil penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act ("PAGA"), California Labor Code section 2698 et seq., fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against Defendant VMS. Plaintiff lacks standing to assert representative PAGA claims for violations she did not personally experience, and the Complaint fails to allege compliance with the mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirements of California Labor Code section 2699.3(a) as to each discrete category of violation alleged.
PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that, concurrently with the foregoing demurrer, Defendant VMS moves to strike certain class allegations contained in the Complaint, pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure sections 435, 436, and 437, on the following grounds:
Grounds for Motion to Strike (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §§ 435, 436(a)–(b)):
3. The class allegations in the Complaint, insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations under California Labor Code section 226.7, constitute irrelevant, false, or improper matter within the meaning of California Code of Civil Procedure section 436, subdivisions (a) and (b). The Complaint's own factual allegations demonstrate that the putative class of approximately 3,550 current and former non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant lacks the commonality and typicality necessary for class treatment of rest break claims, given the materially different rest break conditions across six distinct production lines and two separate shifts.
This Demurrer and Motion to Strike are based upon this Notice, the accompanying Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Declaration of James Underwood filed concurrently herewith, the Request for Judicial Notice filed concurrently herewith, all pleadings, records, and papers on file in this action, and such oral and documentary evidence and argument as the Court may consider at the time of the hearing.
The hearing on this Demurrer and Motion to Strike will be held on a date and at a time to be determined by the Court, in a department to be assigned, at the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, located at 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, California 92415.
Respectfully submitted,
CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP
Dated: September 11, 2025
CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP
By: ________
Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.
MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES
I. INTRODUCTION. This is a putative wage-and-hour class action and PAGA representative action brought by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes ("Plaintiff" or "Reyes"), a former Production Associate who worked on Trim Line B during the second shift (2:00 PM to 10:30 PM) at Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.'s manufacturing facility located at 11780 Cherry Avenue, Fontana, California 92337 (the "Fontana Plant"). Plaintiff filed her Complaint on August 1, 2025, asserting seven causes of action against VMS arising from alleged meal and rest break violations, unpaid wages, inaccurate wage statements, and waiting time penalties, together with derivative claims under the Unfair Competition Law and the Private Attorneys General Act. Through this demurrer and concurrent motion to strike, Defendant VMS challenges two of those seven causes of action and a discrete set of class allegations that are legally deficient on their face.
Defendant VMS is a Delaware corporation headquartered at 4200 Industrial Parkway, Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326, and is registered to do business in the State of California. The Fontana Plant is a specialty vehicle modification facility where wheelchair-accessible vans and fleet vehicles are manufactured and upfitted. The Fontana Plant employs approximately 1,450 non-exempt hourly production employees at any given time, distributed across two shifts and six production lines. Over the proposed class period — August 4, 2021 through the date of trial — approximately 3,550 unique individuals have been employed at the Fontana Plant, reflecting the facility's annual turnover rate of approximately 38 percent.
Plaintiff Gloria Reyes was employed at the Fontana Plant from March 12, 2021 through January 19, 2025. She worked on Trim Line B during the second shift and earned an hourly wage of $22.75 at the time of her separation. Plaintiff's employment was limited to a single production line and a single shift throughout her tenure. Despite this limited experience, Plaintiff seeks to represent a sprawling class encompassing every non-exempt hourly employee at the Fontana Plant, across all six production lines and both shifts, and to pursue PAGA penalties on behalf of the State for the full panoply of Labor Code violations — including violations she never personally experienced and for which she cannot establish standing.
Defendant VMS brings this demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action (UCL) and the Seventh Cause of Action (PAGA) on the ground that each fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action under California Code of Civil Procedure section 430.10(e). The UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code claims, fails to allege any independent factual basis for the "unfair" prong, and improperly seeks duplicative relief. The PAGA claim suffers from fundamental standing deficiencies and inadequate pre-suit exhaustion.
Concurrently, Defendant VMS moves to strike the class allegations relating to the Second Cause of Action (rest period violations) because the Complaint's own factual allegations reveal that class treatment of rest break claims is improper. The Fontana Plant's six production lines operate under materially different conditions, the two shifts are managed by different supervisors with different scheduling practices, and Plaintiff's allegations of "surge"-period rest break denial are inherently individualized inquiries that cannot be resolved on a class-wide basis. These class allegations constitute improper matter that should be stricken under Code of Civil Procedure sections 435 and 436.
Importantly, this demurrer does not challenge the First through Fifth Causes of Action on their merits, and the motion to strike does not target the class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action for meal period violations, which are predicated on the arguably uniform automatic meal period deduction feature of the ApexTime timekeeping system. VMS reserves all defenses to those claims. The present motion is narrowly tailored to address the legal insufficiency of the PAGA and UCL claims and the facial impropriety of the rest break class allegations.
II. STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS
For purposes of this demurrer, Defendant VMS accepts as true the material facts properly pleaded in the Complaint. The following statement of relevant facts is drawn from the face of the Complaint and from matters subject to judicial notice.
A. The Fontana Plant Operations. VMS operates the Fontana Plant for the purpose of manufacturing and modifying specialty vehicles, including wheelchair-accessible vans and fleet vehicle upfitting. The Fontana Plant is a substantial industrial facility situated on approximately fourteen acres in the city of Fontana, San Bernardino County, California. The plant runs two production shifts each day: the First Shift, which operates from 5:00 AM to 1:30 PM, and the Second Shift, which operates from 2:00 PM to 10:30 PM. Each standard shift is eight and one-half hours in duration, inclusive of a scheduled thirty-minute unpaid meal period. The First Shift's meal period is scheduled at 9:00 AM, and the Second Shift's meal period is scheduled at 6:00 PM.
The Fontana Plant's production operations are organized across six distinct production lines: Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, Trim Line B, Paint, and Final Assembly/Quality Control ("Final Assembly/QC"). Each production line has its own workflow characteristics, staffing requirements, supervisor structure, and production cycle timing. The nature of the work performed on each line varies considerably — for example, the Paint line involves spray booth operations with environmental and safety protocols that differ materially from the manual assembly work performed on the Trim Lines, and the Final Assembly/QC line operates under quality control inspection protocols with distinct scheduling demands. These operational differences directly affect when and how rest breaks are authorized, scheduled, and taken by employees on each respective line.
During periods of elevated demand, the Fontana Plant may schedule overtime or "surge" shifts that can extend to twelve hours. Under California Labor Code section 512, a twelve-hour shift triggers an employee's entitlement to a second thirty-minute meal period and, under applicable Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders, a third paid ten-minute rest break. The frequency, duration, and intensity of surge periods vary across production lines and across the class period, depending on customer orders, production backlogs, and supply chain conditions.
The Fontana Plant's rest break policy, as set forth in the Employee Handbook, provides for two paid ten-minute rest breaks per standard eight-hour shift and three paid ten-minute rest breaks per twelve-hour shift, in compliance with applicable California law. The specific timing of rest breaks varies by production line and is determined by the line supervisor in coordination with production scheduling requirements.
At any given time, the Fontana Plant employs approximately 1,450 non-exempt hourly production employees. The facility's annual turnover rate is approximately 38 percent, a figure consistent with industry norms for automotive manufacturing. Over the proposed class period of August 4, 2021 through the anticipated date of trial, an estimated 3,550 unique individuals have been employed at the Fontana Plant in non-exempt hourly production positions.
B. Timekeeping System and Auto-Deduction Policy. The Fontana Plant uses an electronic timekeeping system designated ApexTime 6.2, provided by Apex Workforce Solutions, Inc. Employees clock in and clock out using badge-swipe terminals located at designated stations on the plant floor. The ApexTime system records clock-in and clock-out times and calculates hours worked for payroll purposes.
From January 2020 through March 15, 2024, the Fontana Plant employed an automatic thirty-minute meal period deduction feature within the ApexTime system. Under this auto-deduction protocol, if an employee did not affirmatively clock out and clock back in for the scheduled meal period, the ApexTime system would automatically deduct thirty minutes from the employee's recorded hours worked for that shift. The auto-deduction applied uniformly to all non-exempt hourly employees across all production lines and both shifts.
On February 8, 2024, Sandra Olsen, VMS's Vice President of Human Resources, authored an internal memorandum documenting the results of an internal HR audit of timekeeping practices at the Fontana Plant. Following that audit, VMS voluntarily discontinued the auto-deduction feature effective March 15, 2024. A corrective action memorandum was issued by plant management on March 10, 2024, directing all supervisors and timekeeping administrators to transition to a manual clock-out/clock-in protocol for meal periods. Since March 15, 2024, all employees have been required to manually clock out at the beginning of their meal period and manually clock back in at its conclusion.
Additionally, the ApexTime system employs a rounding policy pursuant to which clock-in and clock-out punches are rounded to the nearest six-minute increment (i.e., one-tenth of an hour). This rounding protocol has been in effect throughout the class period.
C. Employee Handbook and Compliance Policies. The Fontana Plant Employee Handbook, most recently revised in June 2022, contains a written Meal and Rest Break Policy at Section 4.3. That policy states that VMS authorizes and permits all non-exempt employees to take meal and rest breaks in accordance with California law and applicable Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders. The policy further states that employees should notify their immediate supervisor if they are unable to take or complete any meal or rest break for any reason.
Supervisor training materials addressing meal and rest break compliance were last updated in September 2023. These training materials were distributed to all line supervisors and shift managers at the Fontana Plant. The Fontana Plant Manager during the relevant period has been Marcus Gutierrez.
D. Plaintiff's PAGA Notice and Procedural History. On May 22, 2025, Plaintiff served a PAGA notice on the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency ("LWDA") and on Vantage Mobility Systems Corp., pursuant to California Labor Code section 2699.3(a). The LWDA assigned the notice case number LWDA-CM-2025-831447. Plaintiff's PAGA notice purports to assert penalties for all seven categories of Labor Code violations alleged in the Complaint on behalf of all non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. The notice was filed through the LWDA's online submission portal.
The sixty-five-day period prescribed by California Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(2)(A) for the LWDA to commence an investigation expired on July 26, 2025. The LWDA did not initiate an investigation or notify VMS or Plaintiff of any intent to investigate during the statutory period. A true and correct copy of the PAGA notice and the LWDA case record reflecting the absence of any investigation are authenticated in the Declaration of James Underwood filed concurrently herewith and are the subject of a concurrent Request for Judicial Notice.
Plaintiff filed her Complaint in this action on August 1, 2025 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, and the matter was assigned Case Number CIVSB-2025-04781. VMS was served with the Summons and Complaint on August 12, 2025 through CT Agents, Inc., its registered agent for service of process in California, located at 818 West Seventh Street, Suite 930, Sacramento, California 95814. Defendant's responsive pleading deadline is September 11, 2025, thirty days from the date of service.
E. The Seven Causes of Action. Plaintiff's Complaint asserts seven causes of action against VMS, as follows:
• First Cause of Action: Meal Period Violations (Cal. Lab. Code §§ 226.7, 512)
• Second Cause of Action: Rest Period Violations (Cal. Lab. Code § 226.7)
• Third Cause of Action: Unpaid Wages (Cal. Lab. Code §§ 204, 1194)
• Fourth Cause of Action: Inaccurate Wage Statements (Cal. Lab. Code § 226)
• Fifth Cause of Action: Waiting Time Penalties (Cal. Lab. Code § 203)
• Sixth Cause of Action: Unfair Business Practices (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200) — subject of this demurrer
• Seventh Cause of Action: PAGA Penalties (Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) — subject of this demurrer
The present motion challenges only the Sixth and Seventh Causes of Action on demurrer and seeks to strike the class allegations insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations.
III. LEGAL STANDARD FOR DEMURRER
A demurrer tests the legal sufficiency of the factual allegations in a complaint. California Code of Civil Procedure section 430.10, subdivision (e), provides that a party may demur to a complaint on the ground that it "does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action." In ruling on a demurrer, the court treats all material facts properly pleaded as true, but does not accept as true contentions, deductions, or conclusions of fact or law. (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.) The court reads the complaint as a whole and its parts in their context, giving the complaint a reasonable interpretation. (Ibid.)
However, a complaint must allege sufficient factual matter to state a cause of action; conclusory allegations and legal conclusions masquerading as factual allegations are insufficient to withstand demurrer. (Rakestraw v. California Physicians' Service (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 39, 43 ["[T]he complaint must contain sufficient facts to state a cause of action; each evidentiary fact that might eventually form part of the plaintiff's proof need not be alleged."].) A demurrer should be sustained where the complaint fails to allege facts establishing every element of the cause of action. (Ibid.)
In addition to the facts alleged in the complaint, the court may consider matters subject to judicial notice under California Evidence Code sections 452 and 453. Matters properly subject to judicial notice include official acts of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the United States and of any state, as well as records of any court of this state. (Cal. Evid. Code § 452, subds. (c), (d).)
IV. DEMURRER TO THE SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION — PAGA (CAL. LAB. CODE § 2698 ET SEQ.)
A. Legal Framework for PAGA Standing. The Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, codified at California Labor Code section 2698 et seq., authorizes an "aggrieved employee" to bring a civil action on behalf of the State of California for the recovery of civil penalties for violations of the Labor Code. (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(a).) PAGA was enacted to supplement the enforcement capabilities of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency by deputizing private employees to act as agents of the State. The statute serves an important public purpose, but it is not without limits — most notably, the standing requirement that tethers a plaintiff's representative authority to violations she has personally experienced.
An "aggrieved employee" is defined by statute as "any person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed." (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(c).) The California Supreme Court has interpreted this standing requirement in Kim v. Reins International California, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 73, holding that a PAGA plaintiff must demonstrate that she personally suffered each type of violation for which she seeks to assert representative standing. (Id. at pp. 83–84.) As the Court explained, "a plaintiff who has suffered at least one Labor Code violation may seek PAGA penalties on behalf of other employees who suffered the same type of violation, but may not serve as a representative for violations she did not personally experience." (Id. at p. 84.)
The significance of Kim has been reinforced and codified by the 2024 amendments to PAGA, enacted through Assembly Bill 2288 and effective July 1, 2024. Those amendments clarify and strengthen the standing requirements for PAGA claims, confirming that a plaintiff's representative authority is coextensive with — and limited to — the violations she personally experienced. Because Plaintiff's Complaint was filed on August 1, 2025, well after the effective date of the 2024 amendments, the amended standing requirements apply in full to this action.
Furthermore, PAGA imposes mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirements. Before filing a PAGA action, a plaintiff must provide written notice to the LWDA and to the employer identifying "the specific provisions of [the Labor Code] alleged to have been violated, including the facts and theories to support the alleged violation." (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699.3(a)(1)(A).) This exhaustion requirement is a prerequisite to suit, and it must be satisfied as to each discrete category of violation alleged.
B. Plaintiff's PAGA Notice Is Deficient as to Certain Violations. Plaintiff's PAGA notice (LWDA No. LWDA-CM-2025-831447), served on the LWDA and VMS on May 22, 2025, purports to assert penalties for all seven categories of Labor Code violations on behalf of all non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. The notice is attached as Exhibit A to the Declaration of James Underwood and is the subject of Defendant's concurrent Request for Judicial Notice.
A review of the PAGA notice reveals that it identifies the categories of alleged violations in broad, general terms — reciting the relevant Labor Code provisions and asserting that "Defendant systematically failed to provide compliant meal periods, rest periods, and accurate wage statements to Plaintiff and all similarly situated non-exempt employees." The notice, however, lacks the factual specificity required by Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(1)(A) as to several discrete categories of violations. In particular:
Second meal period violations. The PAGA notice asserts that VMS failed to provide second meal periods on shifts exceeding ten hours. However, Plaintiff Gloria Reyes worked a standard 8.5-hour shift on Trim Line B. The notice does not identify any specific occasion on which Plaintiff personally worked a shift exceeding ten hours and was denied a second meal period. It does not identify the dates, frequency, or circumstances of any such violation as to Plaintiff herself, nor does it identify the particular production lines or shifts where second meal period violations allegedly occurred. The notice's assertion of second meal period violations is conclusory and unsupported by the particularized factual showing required for adequate PAGA exhaustion.
Rounding-based underpayment. The PAGA notice references VMS's use of the ApexTime rounding protocol, which rounds clock-in and clock-out punches to the nearest six-minute increment. The notice asserts in generalized terms that the rounding policy "systematically resulted in unpaid work time." However, the notice does not identify any specific instance in which Plaintiff's own compensable work time was reduced as a result of rounding, nor does it provide any factual basis for concluding that the rounding policy operated to Plaintiff's detriment rather than to her benefit over the class period. Without such particularized facts, the PAGA notice fails to satisfy the exhaustion requirement as to rounding-based underpayment claims.
Wage statement inaccuracies beyond meal/rest break claims. The PAGA notice asserts violations of Labor Code section 226 (inaccurate wage statements) but does so in purely derivative terms, tying the alleged wage statement deficiencies to the underlying meal and rest break violations. To the extent Plaintiff seeks PAGA penalties for wage statement violations independent of the meal and rest break claims — for example, inaccuracies in the reporting of total hours worked due to rounding — the notice does not provide the required factual specificity.
The sixty-five-day cure period expired on July 26, 2025, without the LWDA commencing an investigation. (See Exhibit B to the Underwood Decl.) While the absence of LWDA action entitles Plaintiff to proceed with suit, it does not cure the underlying deficiencies in the PAGA notice itself. The adequacy of the PAGA notice is evaluated as of the date it was served, not as of the date the cure period expired. A deficient PAGA notice cannot be retroactively rehabilitated by the mere passage of time.
C. Plaintiff Lacks Standing to Assert PAGA Claims for Violations She Did Not Personally Experience. Plaintiff's Complaint is replete with sweeping allegations that VMS violated the Labor Code as to "all" non-exempt hourly employees at the Fontana Plant. But Plaintiff Gloria Reyes was employed on a single production line — Trim Line B — during a single shift — the second shift. Her individual allegations, to the extent they are particularized at all, focus on two categories of alleged harm: (i) being required to remain at her workstation during meal periods due to production quotas imposed by her Trim Line B supervisor, and (ii) experiencing shortened or denied rest breaks during intermittent "surge" production periods on Trim Line B.
Plaintiff does not allege — because she cannot allege — that she personally experienced each of the categories of violations for which she seeks to recover PAGA penalties on behalf of the State. Specifically:
Second meal period violations. Plaintiff's standard shift was 8.5 hours. The Complaint does not allege that Plaintiff regularly or even occasionally worked shifts exceeding ten hours that would trigger entitlement to a second meal period. Without personal experience of a second meal period violation, Plaintiff cannot serve as a PAGA representative for employees who did work extended shifts and allegedly were denied second meal periods.
Rounding-based underpayment. The Complaint does not contain any particularized allegation that the ApexTime rounding protocol resulted in a net loss of compensable time to Plaintiff over the course of her employment. Under well-established California law, a rounding policy is lawful if it is facially neutral and, over time, does not consistently result in underpayment. Plaintiff's failure to allege that the rounding policy harmed her individually means she cannot assert PAGA standing for rounding-related claims.
Violations unique to other production lines and first shift. The Complaint treats the Fontana Plant's workforce as monolithic, but the six production lines and two shifts operate under materially different conditions. Plaintiff has no personal knowledge of, and no standing to assert PAGA claims based upon, violations that occurred on Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, the Paint line, the Final Assembly/QC line, or the first shift. The conditions on Trim Line B during the second shift are specific to that line and that shift, and Plaintiff's experience there does not vest her with representative authority to prosecute PAGA claims for violations she never experienced on other lines or shifts.
Under Kim v. Reins International California, Inc., supra, 9 Cal.5th at pages 83–84, and the 2024 PAGA amendments, Plaintiff must have personally suffered each type of violation to have representative standing. She cannot bootstrap violations she did not experience. To the extent the Seventh Cause of Action encompasses PAGA claims for second meal period violations, rounding-based underpayment, and other violations Plaintiff did not personally suffer, those claims must be dismissed for lack of standing.
The Complaint's formulaic recitation that "Plaintiff was subject to each of the violations described herein" is a legal conclusion, not a factual allegation, and must be disregarded on demurrer. (Blank v. Kirwan, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 318; Rakestraw, supra, 81 Cal.App.4th at p. 43.) Stripped of its conclusory language, the Complaint reveals that Plaintiff's actual, particularized allegations of personal harm are limited to meal break violations on Trim Line B and rest break shortening during surge periods — also on Trim Line B. The Seventh Cause of Action reaches far beyond these limited personal experiences and, to that extent, is legally deficient.
D. The PAGA Claim Fails to Allege Compliance with Exhaustion Requirements for All Violations. As set forth above, PAGA imposes a mandatory pre-suit exhaustion requirement: a plaintiff must serve written notice on the LWDA and the employer specifying the particular Labor Code provisions alleged to have been violated, together with the facts and theories supporting each alleged violation. (Cal. Lab. Code § 2699.3(a)(1)(A).) This exhaustion requirement is jurisdictional in nature and must be satisfied as to each discrete category of violation.
Plaintiff's PAGA notice must be evaluated for adequacy as to each discrete violation alleged in the Seventh Cause of Action. As demonstrated in Section IV.B above, the PAGA notice lacks the factual specificity required to exhaust certain categories of violations, including second meal period violations, rounding-based underpayment, and independent wage statement inaccuracies. To the extent the PAGA cause of action is predicated on violations for which the PAGA notice failed to provide a sufficient factual foundation, the claim is not properly exhausted and must be dismissed.
Defendant does not contend that the PAGA notice is deficient in all respects. To the extent the notice adequately identifies meal period violations arising from the auto-deduction policy and rest break violations during surge periods on Trim Line B — the categories of harm Plaintiff actually experienced — the exhaustion requirement may be satisfied as to those narrow categories. But the Seventh Cause of Action sweeps far more broadly, and its over-inclusive scope cannot be sustained on demurrer.
Accordingly, Defendant respectfully requests that the Court sustain the demurrer to the Seventh Cause of Action with leave to amend, limited to those violations for which Plaintiff can establish both personal standing and adequate PAGA notice exhaustion.
V. DEMURRER TO THE SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION — UCL (CAL. BUS. & PROF. CODE § 17200)
A. Legal Framework for UCL Claims. California's Unfair Competition Law, codified at Business and Professions Code section 17200, prohibits "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice." The UCL establishes three distinct prongs — unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent — each of which provides an independent basis for relief. (Cel-Tech Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co. (1999) 20 Cal.4th 163, 180.) A plaintiff asserting a UCL claim must allege facts sufficient to state a cause of action under at least one of these three prongs.
Critically, the UCL does not create independent substantive liability. It "borrows" violations of other laws and treats them as unlawful business practices under the "unlawful" prong, and it evaluates conduct against standards of fairness and anti-competitive impact under the "unfair" prong. (Cel-Tech, supra, at p. 180.) The UCL's remedial scope is correspondingly limited: available relief is confined to injunctive relief and restitution. (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17203.) The UCL does not authorize the recovery of damages.
Plaintiff's Sixth Cause of Action invokes the UCL in general terms, alleging that VMS's meal and rest break practices constitute "unlawful" and "unfair" business practices within the meaning of section 17200. The Complaint does not allege a "fraudulent" prong theory. As demonstrated below, the UCL claim fails under both the "unlawful" and "unfair" prongs.
B. The "Unlawful" Prong Fails Because It Is Entirely Derivative. Plaintiff's UCL claim under the "unlawful" prong is predicated entirely on the underlying Labor Code violations alleged in the First through Fifth Causes of Action. The Complaint expressly incorporates by reference the factual allegations of the prior causes of action and alleges, in substance, that VMS's failure to provide compliant meal and rest breaks, pay all wages due, provide accurate wage statements, and pay timely final wages constitutes "unlawful" business practices.
The Complaint contains no independent factual allegations supporting the UCL claim beyond those already underlying the statutory Labor Code claims. This is not a case where the plaintiff has identified a business practice that, while not independently actionable under the Labor Code, nonetheless violates some other law or regulation that can serve as a predicate for UCL liability. Rather, the "unlawful" prong is simply a reformulation of the same statutory claims, dressed in UCL garb.
It is well established that a UCL "unlawful" prong claim that is entirely derivative of other statutory causes of action rises and falls with those underlying claims. (Krantz v. BT Visual Images, LLC (2001) 89 Cal.App.4th 164, 178.) Where the predicate statutory claims are themselves subject to demurrer or are otherwise deficient, the derivative UCL claim necessarily fails as well. And even where the predicate claims survive, a purely derivative UCL claim adds nothing to the complaint — it provides no additional factual or legal theory beyond what the underlying causes of action already assert.
Here, to the extent that any of the underlying Labor Code claims are deficient — and Defendant reserves all defenses to those claims — the derivative UCL "unlawful" prong claim fails a fortiori. More fundamentally, even if all underlying claims survive, the "unlawful" prong adds nothing of substance to the Complaint. It is duplicative, insufficiently pled as an independent cause of action, and should be dismissed.
C. The "Unfair" Prong Lacks Sufficient Factual Allegations. The "unfair" prong of the UCL imposes a more demanding pleading standard than the "unlawful" prong. Under Cel-Tech Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co., supra, 20 Cal.4th at page 187, a business practice is "unfair" within the meaning of section 17200 if it is conduct that "threatens an incipient violation of an antitrust law, or violates the policy or spirit of one of those laws because its effects are comparable to or the same as a violation of the law, or otherwise significantly threatens or harms competition."
While the precise contours of the "unfair" prong remain the subject of ongoing judicial development, courts consistently require that the alleged unfairness be "tethered to some legislatively declared policy or proof of some actual or threatened impact on competition." (Cel-Tech, supra, at p. 187; see also Lozano v. Camberwell Enterprises Wireless Services, Inc. (2007) 504 F.3d 718, 736 [applying California law and requiring tethering to legislative policy].) Alternatively, some courts have applied a balancing test that requires a showing that the gravity of harm to the victim outweighs the utility of the defendant's conduct. (Motors, Inc. v. Times Mirror Co. (1980) 102 Cal.App.3d 735, 740.) Under either formulation, a plaintiff must plead specific facts demonstrating why the challenged conduct is "unfair" in a manner distinct from and independent of any predicate statutory violation.
Plaintiff's Complaint fails this standard. The Sixth Cause of Action contains conclusory allegations that VMS's meal and rest break practices constitute "unfair" business practices, but it does not allege any of the following:
• Any anti-competitive effect of VMS's challenged practices;
• Any impact on competition in the automotive manufacturing or specialty vehicle modification industry;
• Any conduct that is "unfair" in any manner distinct from the statutory violations already alleged under the Labor Code;
• Any legislative policy that VMS's practices threaten or undermine beyond the Labor Code provisions already invoked in the First through Fifth Causes of Action;
• Any specific factual basis for a balancing-test analysis demonstrating that the gravity of harm outweighs the utility of VMS's conduct.
In essence, the "unfair" prong allegations simply repackage the "unlawful" prong allegations, which in turn simply repackage the underlying Labor Code claims. This recursive pleading approach does not satisfy the independent factual pleading requirement for the "unfair" prong. Under Cel-Tech, a plaintiff cannot sustain an "unfair" prong claim merely by alleging that the defendant's conduct is unlawful — the plaintiff must demonstrate some additional dimension of unfairness beyond mere illegality. Plaintiff has not done so, and the "unfair" prong fails for lack of sufficient factual allegations.
D. The UCL Claim Improperly Seeks Duplicative Relief. Even if the "unlawful" or "unfair" prong could be sustained — and Defendant submits it cannot — the Sixth Cause of Action must be dismissed because it seeks only duplicative relief.
UCL remedies are limited to injunctive relief and restitution. (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17203.) The "restitution" sought by Plaintiff under the UCL overlaps entirely with the meal and rest break premium pay sought under the First and Second Causes of Action pursuant to California Labor Code section 226.7. Meal and rest break premiums under section 226.7 are "wages" under California law, and the recovery of those wages under the Labor Code causes of action renders the UCL restitution claim wholly duplicative.
The California Supreme Court addressed the scope of UCL restitution in Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Products Co. (2000) 23 Cal.4th 163, 177–178, holding that restitution under the UCL is limited to the return of money or property to the plaintiff that the defendant has wrongfully acquired. Here, Plaintiff has not alleged any distinct restitutionary interest that is not already recoverable under the Labor Code causes of action. The unpaid wages, premium payments, and penalties sought in the First through Fifth Causes of Action encompass the full universe of monetary recovery available to Plaintiff. The UCL restitution claim does not identify any additional category of money or property wrongfully acquired by VMS that is not already the subject of a Labor Code claim.
As for injunctive relief, Plaintiff's prayer for relief under the UCL seeks an injunction requiring VMS to "comply with California meal and rest break laws." This is indistinguishable from the compliance relief that would flow from a judgment in Plaintiff's favor on the underlying Labor Code claims and does not constitute an independent basis for maintaining a separate cause of action.
Accordingly, Defendant respectfully requests that the Court sustain the demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action without leave to amend, as amendment cannot cure the fundamental deficiency of a derivative and duplicative UCL claim. In the alternative, Defendant requests that the Court sustain the demurrer with leave to amend solely as to the "unfair" prong, conditioned on Plaintiff's ability to allege independent factual allegations demonstrating unfairness distinct from the predicate statutory violations.
VI. MOTION TO STRIKE CLASS ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO REST BREAK CLAIMS (SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION)
A. Legal Standard for Motion to Strike. California Code of Civil Procedure section 435 authorizes a party to move to strike "irrelevant, false, or improper matter" from a pleading. Section 436 provides that the court may, upon motion or at any time in its discretion: (a) strike out any irrelevant, false, or improper matter inserted in any pleading; or (b) strike out all or any part of any pleading not drawn or filed in conformity with the laws of this state, a court rule, or an order of the court.
A motion to strike is not the typical vehicle for challenging class certification, which ordinarily proceeds through a motion for or against class certification under Code of Civil Procedure section 382 following the completion of discovery. However, California courts have recognized that a motion to strike may properly target class allegations where the complaint reveals on its face that the requirements for class treatment cannot be met. (Bemis v. People (1955) 133 Cal.App.2d 458; In re Tobacco II Cases (2009) 46 Cal.4th 298; Lazar v. Hertz Corp. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 1494, 1502.) As the Court of Appeal explained in Lazar, "[w]here the defect in the class allegations is revealed on the face of the complaint, a defendant may properly challenge those allegations by way of a motion to strike." (Id. at p. 1502.)
The motion to strike is a narrow tool, and Defendant VMS invokes it here with precision. Defendant does not seek to strike all class allegations in the Complaint; it seeks to strike only those class allegations that relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations. The meal break class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action, which are predicated on the arguably uniform auto-deduction policy in the ApexTime system, are not targeted by this motion. Defendant reserves all defenses to those allegations, including the right to oppose class certification on a full evidentiary record.
B. Plaintiff's Rest Break Class Allegations Lack Commonality and Typicality on Their Face. The Complaint defines the proposed class as "all current and former non-exempt hourly employees who worked at the Fontana Plant at any time from August 4, 2021 through the date of trial." This class definition encompasses approximately 3,550 unique individuals across six production lines, two shifts, and a four-year class period. Plaintiff asserts that this sprawling class shares common questions of law and fact regarding rest break practices at the Fontana Plant. The Complaint's own allegations demonstrate otherwise.
##### 1. The Six Production Lines Have Materially Different Rest Break Conditions
The Fontana Plant operates six distinct production lines: Body Line A, Body Line B, Trim Line A, Trim Line B, Paint, and Final Assembly/QC. As alleged in the Complaint and as is apparent from the nature of the Fontana Plant's operations, each production line has different workflow characteristics, staffing levels, supervisor structures, and production cycle timing. The nature of the work performed on each line varies considerably — from spray booth operations on the Paint line, which involve environmental controls and safety protocols that dictate break timing, to manual assembly work on the Trim Lines, to quality control inspections on the Final Assembly/QC line.
These operational differences directly and materially affect when and how rest breaks are authorized, scheduled, and taken. The Complaint does not allege — and could not allege — that a single, uniform rest break policy was applied identically across all six production lines. Rather, the Complaint alleges in generic terms that "Defendant failed to authorize and permit rest breaks" to "all" non-exempt employees at the Fontana Plant. This conclusory allegation treats the entire 1,450-employee workforce as monolithic, ignoring the material operational differences across lines that determine the specific rest break conditions experienced by each employee.
A class-wide adjudication of rest break claims would require individualized evidence about the specific conditions on each production line: the production cycle timing, the staffing levels, the supervisor practices, the physical layout of the work area (including the proximity of break areas to workstations), and the nature of the work being performed. These are not questions susceptible to common proof. They are inherently line-specific and supervisor-specific inquiries that would require the trier of fact to conduct what amounts to six separate mini-trials — one for each production line — each involving different witnesses, different evidence, and different factual contexts. This is precisely the type of fragmented adjudication that the commonality requirement is designed to prevent.
##### 2. Two Shifts Create Distinct Rest Break Environments
The Fontana Plant's two shifts — First Shift (5:00 AM to 1:30 PM) and Second Shift (2:00 PM to 10:30 PM) — operate under different management, different production demands, and different rest break scheduling practices. The First Shift and Second Shift are supervised by different shift managers, staffed by different employees, and subject to different production schedules and customer delivery deadlines. These structural differences create distinct rest break environments that cannot be meaningfully adjudicated through common proof.
Plaintiff Gloria Reyes worked exclusively on the Second Shift on Trim Line B throughout her tenure at the Fontana Plant. She has no personal knowledge of rest break practices on the First Shift — the supervisory directives issued to First Shift employees, the production demands that affected First Shift break timing, or the manner in which rest breaks were actually authorized and taken by First Shift workers. Plaintiff cannot serve as a typical class representative for the approximately 700 employees who worked the First Shift during the class period. Her experience on Trim Line B, Second Shift, is not representative of the experience of First Shift employees on any production line, and particularly not of First Shift employees on lines other than Trim Line B.
The Complaint does not allege any uniform policy of rest break denial applicable across both shifts. Instead, it relies on conclusory assertions of "systematic" violations, without identifying any specific policy, practice, or directive that operated uniformly across both shifts to deny or shorten rest breaks. The absence of any such allegation confirms that the rest break inquiry is shift-specific and not amenable to class treatment.
##### 3. "Surge" Period Allegations Are Inherently Individualized
The central factual predicate of Plaintiff's rest break claims is the allegation that rest breaks were shortened or denied during "surge" production periods. The Complaint alleges that during these periods of elevated demand, supervisors required employees to remain at their workstations or to shorten their rest breaks in order to meet production targets.
By their very nature, surge periods are intermittent, variable, and unpredictable. They vary in frequency, duration, and intensity across production lines and across the class period. A surge on Body Line A during a particular week does not necessarily coincide with a surge on Trim Line B or the Paint line during the same week. The production demands that trigger a surge — customer orders, supply chain disruptions, quality control issues, staffing shortages — are line-specific and time-specific.
Whether any individual employee's rest break was shortened or denied during a surge period is, therefore, an inherently individualized inquiry. It depends on the employee's production line, shift, dates of employment, the specific production demands at the time, the directives of the employee's immediate supervisor, and the employee's own conduct in response to those demands. This individualized nature is not merely a factual inference drawn by Defendant — it is apparent from the face of the Complaint itself. The Complaint's own characterization of surge-related rest break denial as occurring during "periods" of elevated demand, rather than pursuant to a standing, uniform policy, confirms that the alleged violations are episodic and fact-specific rather than systematic and class-wide.
The practical implications of this individualization are profound. To adjudicate rest break claims on a class-wide basis, the trier of fact would need to determine, for each of the approximately 3,550 class members, whether a surge period was in effect on that employee's production line during each of that employee's shifts throughout the class period, whether the surge resulted in a shortened or denied rest break, whether the supervisor directed the employee to skip or shorten the break or the employee made a voluntary choice, and whether the employee was otherwise provided an opportunity to take a compliant break. This is not class adjudication — it is 3,550 individual trials.
##### 4. Voluntary Break Patterns Further Defeat Commonality
VMS's Employee Handbook (Section 4.3, revised June 2022) authorizes and permits rest breaks in compliance with California law. The Complaint does not allege that VMS maintained a written policy prohibiting rest breaks or directing supervisors to deny rest breaks. To the contrary, the existence of a written policy authorizing compliant rest breaks means that any failure to take a rest break may be attributable to individual employee choice rather than employer compulsion.
Under California law, an employer satisfies its rest break obligation by "authorizing and permitting" rest breaks — the employer is not required to ensure that every employee actually takes the break. Whether any individual employee voluntarily chose not to take, or to shorten, a rest break is an individualized defense that cannot be resolved on a class-wide basis. The Complaint's allegation of "routine" shortening or denial of rest breaks — as distinguished from a uniform policy of prohibition — by its own terms requires employee-by-employee adjudication. Each employee's subjective motivation and actual conduct during the break period must be individually assessed.
This defense is not speculative. It is a well-recognized affirmative defense in California meal and rest break litigation, and its applicability to any given employee depends entirely on that employee's individual circumstances. The prevalence of voluntary break-skipping in a manufacturing environment — where employees may choose to continue working to complete a task, earn overtime, or avoid disrupting their workflow — further underscores the individualized nature of rest break claims.
C. The Class Allegations as to Rest Breaks Are Irrelevant and Improper. For the reasons set forth above, the Complaint's own allegations demonstrate that the proposed class cannot satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements for class treatment of rest break claims. The class allegations relating to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations therefore constitute "improper matter" within the meaning of California Code of Civil Procedure section 436.
Maintaining these allegations in the Complaint will generate unnecessary discovery burden and confusion. If the class allegations are permitted to stand, VMS will be obligated to respond to class discovery directed at rest break practices across all six production lines and both shifts — a massive undertaking that the Complaint's own allegations demonstrate is unwarranted. The discovery burden associated with class allegations that are facially improper is precisely the type of harm that a motion to strike is designed to prevent.
Defendant respectfully requests that the Court strike the class allegations in the Complaint insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations. Specifically, Defendant seeks to strike the class definition language in paragraph 14 of the Complaint as it relates to rest break claims, the commonality and typicality allegations in paragraphs 17 through 22 as they relate to rest break claims, and the class-wide rest break allegations in paragraphs 48 through 57 of the Second Cause of Action. These paragraphs, and any other paragraphs that assert class-wide rest break claims, should be stricken as irrelevant and improper.
D. Striking Class Allegations Does Not Prejudice Plaintiff's Individual Claims. Granting this motion will not deprive Plaintiff of her right to pursue her individual rest break claims. Plaintiff's allegations that she personally experienced shortened or denied rest breaks during surge periods on Trim Line B, Second Shift, will survive. She may prosecute those individual claims through trial.
Nor will this motion prevent other employees from pursuing their own claims. If individual employees on other production lines or shifts experienced rest break violations, they may file individual claims or seek to certify a narrower sub-class limited to employees who share common circumstances — for example, employees on a particular production line supervised by a particular manager who implemented a specific rest break practice. The motion to strike merely recognizes what the Complaint's own allegations make clear: a single, plant-wide class encompassing all 3,550 employees is not appropriate for rest break claims.
Finally, Defendant emphasizes that this motion does not target the class allegations relating to the First Cause of Action for meal period violations. Those allegations are predicated on the ApexTime auto-deduction policy, which applied uniformly to all non-exempt employees across all production lines and both shifts from January 2020 through March 15, 2024. Because the auto-deduction was a system-wide, technology-driven practice, it presents a qualitatively different commonality profile than the rest break claims, which depend on line-specific, shift-specific, and supervisor-specific practices. Defendant reserves all defenses to the meal break class allegations and to class certification generally.
VII. CONCLUSION AND PRAYER FOR RELIEF
For the foregoing reasons, Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. respectfully requests that the Court enter the following orders:
1. Sustain the demurrer to the Seventh Cause of Action (PAGA, Cal. Lab. Code § 2698 et seq.) with leave to amend, limited to those violations for which Plaintiff can establish personal standing under Kim v. Reins International California, Inc., supra, 9 Cal.5th 73, and the 2024 PAGA amendments, and for which Plaintiff can demonstrate adequate pre-suit exhaustion under Labor Code section 2699.3(a). Any amended PAGA claim should be confined to meal period violations arising from the auto-deduction policy and rest break violations on Trim Line B, Second Shift — the only categories of violations Plaintiff has alleged with particularity based on her personal experience.
2. Sustain the demurrer to the Sixth Cause of Action (UCL, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200) without leave to amend, on the grounds that the UCL claim is entirely derivative of the underlying Labor Code causes of action, fails to allege independent factual support for the "unfair" prong, and seeks only duplicative relief. In the alternative, if the Court is inclined to grant leave to amend, Defendant requests that leave be granted solely as to the "unfair" prong, conditioned on Plaintiff's ability to allege independent factual allegations demonstrating unfairness distinct from the predicate statutory violations.
3. Grant the motion to strike the class allegations in the Complaint insofar as they relate to the Second Cause of Action for rest period violations, including but not limited to the class definition language in paragraph 14 (as applied to rest break claims), the commonality and typicality allegations in paragraphs 17 through 22 (as applied to rest break claims), and the class-wide rest break allegations in paragraphs 48 through 57 of the Second Cause of Action.
4. Award Defendant its costs incurred in connection with this motion and grant such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.
Respectfully submitted,
CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP
Dated: September 11, 2025
CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP
By: ________
Renata Vasquez (SBN 247831) 633 West Fifth Street, Suite 4400 Los Angeles, California 90071 Telephone: (213) 629-8400 Facsimile: (213) 629-8401
Attorneys for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO
GLORIA REYES, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, and on behalf of the State of California,
Plaintiff,
v.
VANTAGE MOBILITY SYSTEMS CORP., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 through 50, inclusive,
Defendants.
Case No. CIVSB-2025-04781
DECLARATION OF JAMES UNDERWOOD IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT'S DEMURRER TO PLAINTIFF'S SIXTH AND SEVENTH CAUSES OF ACTION AND MOTION TO STRIKE PORTIONS OF THE COMPLAINT
I, James Underwood, declare as follows:
1. I am an attorney duly licensed to practice law in the State of California. I am a member of the State Bar of California, Bar Number 312756, and I am currently in good standing. I am a lead associate at Calderwood & Harkness LLP, counsel of record for Defendant Vantage Mobility Systems Corp. ("VMS" or "Defendant") in the above-captioned action. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth in this declaration, except where stated on information and belief, and if called as a witness, I could and would competently testify thereto.
2. I submit this declaration in support of Defendant VMS's Demurrer to Plaintiff's Sixth and Seventh Causes of Action and Motion to Strike Portions of the Complaint, filed concurrently herewith.
3. Attached hereto as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of the PAGA notice served by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes on the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency ("LWDA") and on Vantage Mobility Systems Corp., dated May 22, 2025. The LWDA assigned this notice case number LWDA-CM-2025-831447. I obtained this copy from VMS's files, where it was maintained in the ordinary course of business following receipt of service. The PAGA notice was received by VMS's registered agent for service of process, CT Agents, Inc., on or about May 24, 2025 and was forwarded to VMS's legal department on May 27, 2025.
4. Attached hereto as Exhibit B is a true and correct printout of the LWDA's online case record for LWDA Case Number LWDA-CM-2025-831447, reflecting that no investigation was commenced by the LWDA during the sixty-five-day period prescribed by California Labor Code section 2699.3(a)(2)(A). The sixty-five-day period commenced on May 22, 2025, the date the PAGA notice was served, and expired on July 26, 2025. I accessed this record through the LWDA's publicly available online case management portal on September 8, 2025. The case record confirms that as of September 8, 2025, the status of the PAGA notice remains "No Investigation Initiated — Cure Period Expired." Defendant VMS requests the Court take judicial notice of this official record of a state agency pursuant to California Evidence Code section 452, subdivision (c).
5. Attached hereto as Exhibit C are true and correct copies of relevant excerpts of the Complaint filed by Plaintiff Gloria Reyes on August 1, 2025 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, Case Number CIVSB-2025-04781. Specifically, Exhibit C includes the following portions of the Complaint:
(a) Paragraphs 1 through 13 (general allegations and party identification);
(b) Paragraph 14 (proposed class definition);
(c) Paragraphs 17 through 22 (class action allegations, including commonality and typicality);
(d) Paragraphs 48 through 57 (Second Cause of Action — Rest Period Violations);
(e) Paragraphs 72 through 81 (Sixth Cause of Action — Unfair Business Practices under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200);
(f) Paragraphs 82 through 95 (Seven

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO

NOTICE OF DEMURRER AND MOTION TO STRIKE

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

MEMORANDUM OF POINTS AND AUTHORITIES

II. STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS

III. LEGAL STANDARD FOR DEMURRER

VII. CONCLUSION AND PRAYER FOR RELIEF

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO

Record

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