The case of Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC (2014) found that the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) did not violate California’s separation of powers rule. Even if that decision was not binding, a court applying the rule would reach the same result.

In California Business & Industrial Alliance v. Becerra, the plaintiff was a lobbying group aiming to represent small and midsize businesses in California and to secure PAGA’s repeal or reform. It sued the defendant Xavier Becerra, then California attorney general.

The lobbying group asked the court for a judicial declaration that PAGA was unconstitutional and for injunctive relief preventing the defendant from implementing or enforcing the legislation. It claimed that PAGA breached the ban against excessive fines under the Eighth Amendment, the due process rights of the lobbying group’s members pursuant to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The plaintiff’s complaint characterized California’s labor laws as “a daunting and confusing web of obligations for employers.” It made the following allegations:

• The California Labor Code’s provisions enforceable via PAGA were “unclear, cumbersome, counterintuitive, impossible to follow;”
• The state’s meal period requirements rendered compliance “impracticable,” “preposterous,” and “hopeless;”
• California’s wage statement requirements “spawned countless lawsuits alleging hyper-technical...

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