Employers with operations both large and small in California are all too familiar with California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”), the controversial 2004 statute that permits a single employee to stand in the shoes of the state’s attorney general and file suit on behalf of other employees to seek to recover penalties for alleged Labor Code violations.
PAGA lawsuits are filed with great regularity by members of the plaintiffs’ bar.
And the in terrorem effect of PAGA lawsuits, in which a plaintiff need not satisfy class certification criteria to represent an entire workforce, has led many employers to pay large settlements just to avoid legal fees and the possibility of larger awards -- even when the evidence of unlawful conduct is spotty or entirely absent.
Blog Editors
Recent Updates
- The U.S. Department of Labor’s Final Rule Increasing the Salary Threshold for EAP Exemptions Took Effect, Except for the State of Texas as an Employer
- Plaintiffs in California Putative Class Action Lose Numerous Challenges to Enforcing Arbitration, Barring Unclean Hands
- California Governor’s PAGA Deal: What Employers Need to Know - Employment Law This Week
- Minimum Wage Increases (and Other Changes) Are Coming on July 1, 2024
- New Jersey Wage Theft Act Does Not Apply Retroactively, Per the State Supreme Court