(CA S.Ct.) Lu v. Hawaiian Gardens Casino

Action and remedies, California: distinction between private right of action (from a statute) and actions from common law: a violation of a state statute does not necessarily give rise to a private cause of action.  (Vikco Ins. Services, Inc. v. Ohio Indemnity Co. (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 55, 62 (Vikco).)  Instead, whether a party has a right to sue depends on whether the Legislature has “manifested an intent to create such a private cause of action” under the statute; such legislative intent, if any, is revealed through the language of the statute and its legislative history.  (See Moradi-Shalal, supra, 46 Cal.3d at pp. 294-295); strictly speaking, the term “action” is not interchangeable with “cause of action.”  “While ‘action’ refers to the judicial remedy to enforce an obligation, ‘cause of action’ refers to the obligation itself.”  (Nassif v. Municipal Court (1989) 214 Cal.App.3d 1294, 1298); our holding in Moradi-Shalal that the Legislature must clearly manifest an intent to create a private cause of action under a statute is hardly novel.  (Moradi-Shalal, supra, 46 Cal.3d at p. 295.) In Katzberg, we limited our endorsement of the Restatement test to determining whether to “recognize a tort action for damages to remedy a constitutional violation.”  (Katzberg, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 325, italics added.)  Indeed, we noted that “with regard to most constitutional provisions, the words of the provision do not on their own manifest any such intent” to support a damages action.  (Id. at p. 318.)  In contrast, the case here concerns the availability of a private action for a statutory violation.  As noted above (see ante, at pp. 4-5), our inquiry is different in that regard because we consider the statute’s language first, as it is the best indicator of whether a private right to sue exists.  (See Moradi-Shalal, supra, 46 Cal.3d at pp. 294-295; Vikco, supra, 70 Cal.App.4th at p. 62 [“provisions are themselves expression of legislative intent”].) Contrary to plaintiff’s suggestion, our holding that section 351 does not provide a private cause of action does not necessarily foreclose the availability of other remedies.  To the extent that an employee may be entitled to certain misappropriated gratuities, we see no apparent reason why other remedies, such as a common law action for conversion, may not be available under appropriate circumstances.  (See Moradi-Shalal, supra, 46 Cal.3d at pp. 304-305 [even without private cause of action under statute, “courts retain jurisdiction to impose civil damages or other remedies. . . in appropriate common law actions”]; see also Civ. Code, § 3523 [“For every wrong there is a remedy”].) (Cal. S. Ct., 09.08.10, Lu v. Hawaiian Gardens Casino, S171442).

Droit d’action en justice, remèdes, droit californien : distinction entre un droit d’action déduit d’une loi au sens formel et un droit d’action déduit de la common law. La violation d’une loi de l’état de Californie ne donne pas nécessairement naissance à un droit substantiel qui peut être déduit en justice. Savoir si une partie dispose d’un tel droit dépend du fait de savoir si le législateur a manifesté une intention de créer ce droit (…) Au plan du droit constitutionnel, il est à noter que le libellé de la plupart des dispositions constitutionnelles n’indique pas si un tel droit est ou non donné. Même si l’on doit conclure, comme en l’espèce, qu’aucun droit d’action n’est accordé par la loi en question, il se peut que d’autres remèdes soient disponibles, en particulier ceux déduits de la common law. L’action pour conversion est donnée en l’espèce comme exemple d’action dérivant de la common law.