Opinion · California Supreme Court
Goonewardene v. ADP, LLC
Goonewardene v. ADP, LLC, 6 Cal. 5th 817 (Cal. 2019)
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- California Supreme Court
- Jurisdiction
- California
- Date
- 2019-02-07
- Topic
- general
holding that an employee’s common law negligence claim 22 against a payroll processing company failed for lack of a duty of care | explaining that a “third party that ‘only incidentally or remotely benefit[s]’ from a contract” is not a third- party beneficiary (alteration in original | explaining that the parties “must have a motivating purpose to benefit the third party, and not simply knowledge that a benefit to the third party may follow” | explaining that where the law already provides “a full and complete remedy” for an 7 injury, “the imposition of a separate tort duty of care … is generally unnecessary” | rejecting an employee’s argument that the motivating purpose of her employer’s contract with a payroll company was to benefit employees | “[T]his 24 court has not relied primarily on those categories . . . . in the numerous cases in which we 25 have discussed and applied the third party beneficiary doctrine.” | applying the test to compel arbitration with a third-party beneficiary | a court should “examine[] the express provisions of the contract at issue, as well as all of the relevant circumstances under which the contract was agreed to, in order to determine not only (1) whether the third party would in fact benefit from the contract, but also (2
Citator
- Cited by
- 34 opinions
CORRIGAN, J.
LIU, J.
CUÉLLAR, J.
KRUGER, J.
IRION, J.*
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division One, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.