In this episode of California Employment News, Lukas Clary and Meagan Bainbridge discuss recent developments relating to the labor code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and steps that employers can take to mitigate the risk of PAGA exposure.
Continue Reading California Employment News – PAGA: The Four-Letter Word of Employment Law
We
intraub Tobin’s 2022 Labor and Employment Webinar and Training schedule is now available.
Specifics and invitations for each webinar/training will be posted on our website approximately one month prior to the event.
Continue Reading Now Available! Weintraub Tobin’s 2022 Labor and Employment Webinar and Training Schedule
A blog we published here on May 28, 2020, correctly noted that California’s workers-compensation laws may immunize employers from most civil lawsuits alleging that employees became infected with the coronavirus on the job. That blog also correctly emphasized that other types of lawsuits may spread from lax pandemic protocols. This week the California Court of Appeal issued a unanimous three-judge decision outlining a potential path for workers and their families to get around workers-compensation immunity and maintain a possible new strain of civil actions.
Continue Reading The Spread of Employee Lawsuits Related to COVID-19 May Be Widening, But Treatments and Cures May Exist
What is PAGA?
California’s labor law enforcement agencies, including the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (“LWDA”) also known as the “Labor Board” has the authority to investigate whether employers violate the California Labor Code, and assess and collect civil penalties for any such violations. However, due to purported budget cuts and cited lack of state resources to prosecute such actions, in 2004, the Legislature enacted the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA), Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq., to authorize an employee to bring an action for civil penalties on behalf of the state against his or her employer for Labor Code violations committed against the employee and fellow employees, with 75% of the proceeds of that litigation going to the state, and 25% to the employees. A PAGA plaintiff therefore steps into the shoes of an attorney general to prosecute alleged Labor Code violations for civil penalties, on behalf of the state. PAGA penalties can be astronomical. Pursuant to PAGA, default civil penalties are $100 “for each aggrieved employee per pay period for the initial violation,” and $200 per aggrieved employer, per pay period, per “each subsequent violation.”
Continue Reading California Court of Appeal Holds That Trial Courts Have Authority to Strike PAGA Claims For Being Unmanageable
