Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) 1 I. Introduction and Overview In 2000, a California wage and hour class action was very rare and a representative wage and hour action was unheard of. Things have changed dramatically. Class actions and representative actions are now ubiquitous. Currently, numerous such actions are filed every day in California courts. The reasons for this trend are essentially fourfold. First, California’s wage and hour laws differ from federal laws in various ways. Employers fully compliant with federal law often find themselves at odds with California law. Second, California procedural rules make it easier to file class actions. And employees can also file representative actions under the California Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, which does not impose class certification standards.1 In contrast, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires an “opt-in” procedure that tends to restrict the size of classes as compared to the “opt-out” class action procedure used in California. Third, California’s unfair competition law allows claimants to borrow violations of other laws and extend the limitations period to four years, making class actions even more lucrative for plaintiffs’ lawyers. Fourth, California Labor Code provisions typically allow for the recovery of prevailing-plaintiff attorney’s fees, creating additional incentives to sue. California Labor Code class and representative actions come in various forms and invoke evolving theories. Essentially, however, any Labor Code violation that can be tied to a corporate policy could support a class action. For that reason, the plaintiffs’ bar continues to devise new theories as to how wage and hour violations can support class and representative actions. This publication reviews the most common such claims and how the law has developed over the last twenty-plus years. We do not, however, attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of California wage and hour law. Sections II through XII address the most common types of class and representative claims in California, such as claims for exempt classification, meal and rest period violations, failure to reimburse expenses, and minimum wage violations. Sections XIII and XIV address peculiar provisions in California law that tend to expand potential damages recoverable in class actions, such as the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) and the Unfair Competition Law (“UCL“). Sections XV through XIX address various aspects of class action procedure in California—the rules governing removal of class actions, class certification, class discovery, class settlement, and class arbitration. Sections XX through XXII, finally, address some miscellaneous topics—Joint employer liability, individual liability and application of California wage and hour law to out-of-state employees. 1 According to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, there were 759 PAGA cases filed in 2005, and 3,137 in 2013. An Alternative to Employee Class Actions, L.A. Daily J. (Apr. 16, 2014). The Department of Industrial Relations reported that the LWDA received over 5,000 PAGA notices in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. 2019 Budget Change Proposal, PAGA Unit Staffing Alignment, 7350-110-BCP-2019-MR https://esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/1920/FY1920_ORG7350_BCP3230.pdf (last accessed on June 6, 2022). In 2021, a record 6,502 PAGA notices were filed. https://hrwatchdog.calchamber.com/2022/08/new-article-shows-record-numberof-paga-filings-during-covid-19-pandemic/ (last accessed December 3, 2023).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4