New class action and California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) filings have grown exponentially in recent years and reached record numbers in 2023. This trend is raising concerns for California employers, as the state courts have expanded liability risks for more claims and further restricted the applicability of arbitration agreements to PAGA claims.
According to data tracking new class and PAGA notice filings compiled by Ogletree Deakins, the number of claims filed has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic with no end in sight, as the California courts have not curtailed PAGA and have opened the door for class claims against employers for more reasons.
In particular, class-action filings in California have steadily increased each year going back through 2017 with a staggering increase in the number of filings in 2023.
In 2023, there were more than 5,000 employment class-action filings, marking a 20 percent increase from the total number of filings in 2022 and more than doubling of the number of filings in 2017. The year 2023 also set a new high-water mark in class-action employment filings in California.
While the data indicates that class-action filings shot up during the pandemic, there has been no slowing down since the loosening of pandemic-related restrictions. To the contrary, the number of class-action filings per year has skyrocketed 47 percent from 2020 to 2023.
The data for PAGA notices filed with the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency...
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