BAE Systems Sheds Claims In Employees’ Wage Class Action

A federal court rejected state-law wage claims against BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair Inc. from employees who worked on naval bases, but certified eight classes of workers in relation to federal claims.

Both locations where proposed class members worked became federal lands in the 1920s, much earlier than California’s Private Attorneys General Act or the relevant sections of the state’s labor code were enacted. Since Congress didn’t allow concurrent state legislative jurisdiction at those locations and California didn’t reserve the right to apply its state wage laws before cession, federal enclave doctrine precluded the workers’ state wage claims, the ...