On February 7, 2022, a California appellate court issued the latest decision regarding the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Representative PAGA actions, which typically involve a relatively brief statute of limitations, permit California employees to collect civil penalties on behalf of the State of California for Labor Code violations committed against them and other employees. The recent decision in Hutcheson v. Superior Court of Alameda County, No. A159861, arises from an appeal in a lawsuit in which the original PAGA plaintiff decided not to continue as the plaintiff in the action and a substitute PAGA plaintiff intervened in the action. The substitute PAGA plaintiff, who would ordinarily have been limited to claims arising one year prior to when he identified the allegedly unlawful conduct, sought to maintain a longer statute of limitations period based on the actions of the original PAGA plaintiff, effectively extending the lawsuit’s reach back in time—and potential civil penalty exposure—by at least an additional year.
The Court of Appeal of the State of California, First Appellate District, Division Two, ruled on the facts of this particular case that the doctrine of relation back allowed a substitute PAGA plaintiff to maintain the original liability period based on the original plaintiff’s filing date. The court emphasized the following facts: the substitute plaintiff had timely filed his own PAGA notice letter, he was already pursuing a separate and timely...
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