Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (24th Edition) 97 XIII. California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act A. General Scope of the Law The California Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 empowers private individuals to seek penalties on a representative basis for alleged Labor Code violations affecting them and other aggrieved employees. PAGA both provides employees with added financial incentives to sue and creates new penalties for Labor Code violations. Previously, some Labor Code provisions carried no civil penalty at all, and many that did call for a penalty did not provide for a private right of action. Civil penalties generally could be obtained only if the DLSE brought an enforcement action against the employer. However, PAGA drastically altered Labor Code enforcement by creating (1) new civil penalties for every provision of the Labor Code that affects employees and that did not previously have a civil penalty469 and (2) a private right of action to recover civil penalties.470 Where no civil penalty amount is expressly set forth for a specific Labor Code violation, the default PAGA penalty is $100 for each aggrieved employee per pay period for an initial violation, and $200 for every further violation.471 A PAGA plaintiff sues on their own behalf and on behalf of other current or former employees who are aggrieved. A union may not bring a PAGA claim on behalf of “aggrieved employees.”472 The California Supreme Court has held that PAGA claims may proceed as representative collective actions without satisfying class certification requirements.473 In so holding, the Court stated that because a PAGA suit is analogous to a suit brought by a government agency on behalf of the public interest, there is no need to satisfy class certification requirements.474 In similar vein, the Court of Appeal confirmed that there is no right to a jury trial for PAGA claims, because “PAGA is not a garden variety civil penalty action” and instead “ contains several unique features that … make it unlike any pre-1850 common law action.”475 Indeed, as the PAGA plaintiff stands in for the state, the plaintiff need not bring the action in the jurisdiction where the plaintiff worked or where the employer’s principal place of business is located; rather, the plaintiff can file the lawsuit in any venue where any allegedly aggrieved employee worked.476 Furthermore, as initially drafted, PAGA 469 Lab. Code § 2699(f). 470 Lab. Code § 2699(a). 471 Lab. Code § 2699(f)(2). See also discussion below regarding the changes made by the 2024 reforms to the $200 penalty provision. 472 Amalgamated Transit Union v. Superior Court, 46 Cal. 4th 993 (2009). Indeed, the Ninth Circuit has held that a PAGA claim can never proceed as a class action, even if the PAGA claim was pleaded as a class action. Canela v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 971 F.3d 845, 854 (9th Cir. 2020) (“[T]he question is whether a PAGA cause of action could have ever, as a matter of law and without any need for discovery into the facts, been filed as a class action. On the face of the Complaint, we hold that it could not have been.”). 473 Arias, 46 Cal. 4th at 969. 474 Id. at 987. 475 LaFace v. Ralphs Grocery Co., 75 Cal. App. 5th 388, 400 (2022), review denied (May 11, 2022). 476 Crestwood Behavioral Health v. Sup. Ct., 60 Cal. App. 5th 1069 (2021).
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