A Fresno County judge blocked an attempt by the Fresno City Attorney’s Office to force a local business to comply with an investigation after it was accused of illegal payment practices by two employees.
Court records show Judge Kristi Culver Kapetan ruled late last month that City Attorney Andrew Janz’s office failed to show it had the authority to subpoena payroll records from The Janitorial Company, based in Fresno. According to Kapetan’s analysis, Janz’s office mainly cited a state law that allows state department heads, not city attorneys, to issue investigative subpoenas.
Kapetan’s rejection appears to be the first of its kind for Janz since his office began investigating and prosecuting employers for wage theft in 2024. It’s not yet clear what the decision could mean for his ability to ensure accused businesses comply with his investigations.
Janz’s office also requested in February that the court enforce a wage theft-related subpoena of another private business, though online records Tuesday did not show the judge assigned to that case has made a decision.
The City Attorney’s office told The Fresno Bee on Tuesday that Janz “does not have a comment on ongoing litigation.”
The city attorney told The Bee in January his office would be ramping up its prosecutions of state Labor Code violations this year. In February, Janz filed his third wage theft complaint against a Fresno employer — a shuttered burrito shop accused of failing to lawfully pay at least 12 workers.
The Fresno City Council allowed Janz to pursue civil wage theft cases after a 2023 state law that authorized local public attorneys to pursue civil and criminal wage theft actions within their jurisdictions, which would help ease the caseload of the California Labor Commissioner’s Office. The council last December also gave Janz the OK to pursue criminal actions against employers accused of wage theft and added staff for the city’s Wage Protection Program.
In recent years, the council has authorized Janz to criminally prosecute various misdemeanors, including illegal camping by homeless people — though the city has failed to convict unhoused people who have challenged the law in at least two cases.
Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz speaks about the recent subpoena of two journalists in an interview Monday, April 14, 2025 in Fresno. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com Fresno business ignore City Attorney’s orders in wage theft probe
Court documents show Janz’s office began investigating The Janitorial Company in July of last year, after employees Gabriella Leon and Monica Leon complained through the city’s Wage Protection Program that the business had not paid them all they were owed. It’s not clear whether the two are related.
The Janitorial Company did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment Tuesday. According to a filing by Janz’s office, the company provides janitorial services and building maintenance in Fresno. It has no central location, and employees drive themselves to different sites to perform work for the company.
Finding merit to the workers’ complaints, Janz’s office ordered the company to turn over various types of payroll records covering the time period between June 2022 and December 2025. The city wanted pay stubs, employee handbooks, copies of checks, tax information and more. But the company only gave the city attorney’s office payroll summaries and the employee handbook, according to court records.
The company then ignored several follow-up orders from the city that it produce the subpoenaed documents. Janz’s office in February asked the court to enforce the subpoena, arguing the city has the power to subpoena The Janitorial Company because of laws in Fresno’s Municipal Code, the 2023 state law that authorized wage theft prosecutions by local attorneys, and because of another California law that empowers state department heads to issue investigative subpoenas.
Kapetan, the judge, wrote in her analysis that the California law that gives state department heads subpoena powers does not apply to the City Attorney’s Office.
“The petition fails to establish how local municipal ordinances and legislative materials confer authority to subpoena private business records,” the judge wrote.
Janz’s office cited the same laws in its request that the court enforce its subpoena of payroll records from Fresno Community Based Adult Services Center LLC, a business that serves adults with disabilities, according to court documents.
Court documents filed by Janz’s office say two employees complained of wage theft, though the employees are not named. Janz’s office subpoenaed the business’ payroll records last July.
But the business only provided about 20% of the records Janz is seeking after the company’s lawyer, Littler Mendelson, resisted the subpoena.
“The Subpoena violates Fresno CBAS’s right to due process by failing to provide essential information — namely, the nature of the allegations, the identity of the complainant and the specific facts underlying the claims,” Mendelson wrote to Janz in October.
Mendelson wrote that, while state law has authorized city attorneys to prosecute wage theft, it “does not override due protections or authorize indiscriminate fishing expeditions.”
Online court records on Tuesday did not yet show a judge has made a decision on that subpoena.
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Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.