While we are waiting for the CA Supreme Court in Leeper v. Shipt to address whether “headless” PAGA claims (i.e., where PAGA representative plaintiffs disavow the “individual” portion of a PAGA claim) are a permissible end run around mandatory arbitration - see our prior blog post - the Fifth Appellate District has weighed in concluding that headless PAGA cases are permissible. See CRST Expedited Inc. v. Superior Court of Fresno County.

The court’s decision in CRST Expedited focused on one subsection of PAGA which states:

• “…any provision of this code that provides for a civil penalty to be assessed and collected by the Labor and Workforce Development Agency … for a violation of this code, may, as an alternative, be recovered through a civil action brought by an aggrieved employee on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees pursuant to the procedures specified in Section 2699.3. Former Lab. Code, § 2699(a) (eff. 6/27/2016 to 6/30/2024) (emphasis added)

In plain English, this provision provides that enforcement of the Labor Code for civil penalties can either be done by (1) the LWDA (the state agency charged with enforcement) or (2) an employee who experienced a Labor Code violation through a civil lawsuit on behalf of the employee “and other current or former employees”.

Under the general and common usage of “and,” this means that any PAGA lawsuit must seek penalties on behalf of the PAGA plaintiff as well as other employees. In other words, no...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMimAFBVV95cUxOVWNPYWRuREVuNm1BSTNpY3Zx...