Two years after California overhauled PAGA, the easy questions are answered. The harder questions that could determine how the next generation of cases play out are only now reaching the courts.
What practitioners should be considering now
The first wave of litigation has focused on familiar threshold questions: Who has standing? What happens when arbitration agreements are involved? How much discretion do trial courts have to manage representative actions before they become unmanageable?
This white paper examines the questions taking shape under the revised statute and why the facts developed at the beginning of a PAGA case may matter later.
Download the white paper to explore
How standing is changing: Why the revised definition of an “aggrieved employee” makes it more important to identify which alleged Labor Code violations the named plaintiff personally experienced.
Where arbitration questions remain: How questions about what proceeds to arbitration and what remains in court continue to arise alongside the new statutory provisions.
Why trial management may prove significant: How the statute’s case-management tools may require both sides to consider earlier whether alleged violations can be established through common evidence or whether the facts vary by employee, location, manager or job classification.
Why Labor Code decisions still drive PAGA litigation: How appellate decisions involving meal periods, wage statements, expense reimbursement, overtime and waiting-time penalties can define the substantive violations that may support a PAGA claim.
The reforms are in place, but the case law is only beginning to develop
Courts will eventually define the boundaries of the revised statute. Until then, the questions practitioners ask, the facts they develop and the records they build now may help shape how those questions are answered later.
