{"id":225883,"date":"2026-03-18T21:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T21:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225883\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T21:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T21:45:10","slug":"judge-blocks-fresno-city-attorneys-payroll-subpoena-attempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/225883\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge blocks Fresno city attorney\u2019s payroll subpoena attempt"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Fresno County judge blocked an attempt by the Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office<\/a> to force a local business to comply with an investigation after it was accused of illegal payment practices by two employees.<\/p>\n

Court records show Judge Kristi Culver Kapetan ruled late last month that City Attorney Andrew Janz\u2019s office failed to show it had the authority to subpoena payroll records from The Janitorial Company, based in Fresno. According to Kapetan\u2019s analysis, Janz\u2019s office mainly cited a state law that allows state department heads, not city attorneys, to issue investigative subpoenas.<\/p>\n

Kapetan\u2019s 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\u2019s not yet clear what the decision could mean for his ability to ensure accused businesses comply with his investigations.<\/p>\n

Janz\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The City Attorney\u2019s office told The Fresno Bee on Tuesday that Janz \u201cdoes not have a comment on ongoing litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 a shuttered burrito shop accused of failing to lawfully pay at least 12 workers.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s Wage Protection Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the council has authorized Janz to criminally prosecute various misdemeanors, including illegal camping by homeless people \u2014 though the city has failed to convict unhoused people who have challenged the law in at least two cases.<\/p>\n

\"Fresno 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\u2019s orders in wage theft probe<\/p>\n

Court documents show Janz\u2019s office began investigating The Janitorial Company in July of last year, after employees Gabriella Leon and Monica Leon complained through the city\u2019s Wage Protection Program that the business had not paid them all they were owed. It\u2019s not clear whether the two are related.<\/p>\n

The Janitorial Company did not respond to The Bee\u2019s request for comment Tuesday. According to a filing by Janz\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Finding merit to the workers\u2019 complaints, Janz\u2019s 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\u2019s office payroll summaries and the employee handbook, according to court records.<\/p>\n

The company then ignored several follow-up orders from the city that it produce the subpoenaed documents. Janz\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe petition fails to establish how local municipal ordinances and legislative materials confer authority to subpoena private business records,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

Janz\u2019s office cited the same laws in its request that the court enforce its subpoena<\/a> of payroll records from Fresno Community Based Adult Services Center LLC, a business that serves adults with disabilities, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Court documents filed by Janz\u2019s office say two employees complained of wage theft, though the employees are not named. Janz\u2019s office subpoenaed the business\u2019 payroll records last July.<\/p>\n

But the business only provided about 20% of the records Janz is seeking after the company\u2019s lawyer, Littler Mendelson, resisted the subpoena.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Subpoena violates Fresno CBAS\u2019s right to due process by failing to provide essential information \u2014 namely, the nature of the allegations, the identity of the complainant and the specific facts underlying the claims,\u201d Mendelson wrote to Janz in October.<\/p>\n

Mendelson wrote that, while state law has authorized city attorneys to prosecute wage theft, it \u201cdoes not override due protections or authorize indiscriminate fishing expeditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online court records on Tuesday did not yet show a judge has made a decision on that subpoena.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Erik Galicia<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

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\u2019s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik\u2019s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fresno County judge blocked an attempt by the Fresno City Attorney\u2019s Office to force a local business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,16804,114,113,102858,102857,102856,102855],"class_list":["post-225883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-city-attorney","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-judge-kristi-culver-kapetan","tag-payroll-records","tag-the-janitorial-company","tag-wage-theft-subpoena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}