Seyfarth Synopsis: The Fifth District Court of Appeal held that under pre-reform PAGA, headless PAGA actions in which plaintiffs seek civil penalties only on behalf of other employees and not for violations they personally experienced are permitted.
The Fifth District Court of Appeal considered the meaning of pre-reform PAGA language stating that a PAGA action "may" be brought "on behalf of [the PAGA plaintiff] and other current or former employees." As the Court of Appeal framed it, "[t]he question is whether this text authorized [a PAGA plaintiff] to bring a lawsuit that seeks to recover civil penalties imposed for Labor Code violations suffered only by other employees," also known as a "headless PAGA action."
When initiating the lawsuit in 2019, the PAGA plaintiff sought civil penalties on behalf of himself and all other aggrieved employees. But in 2024, the PAGA plaintiff dismissed his individual PAGA claim, leaving only a request for civil penalties for harm suffered by other employees. The Court of Appeal recognized that the PAGA plaintiff strategically abandoned his individual PAGA claim "to avoid arbitrating [it] under the Federal Arbitration Act, as interpreted by Viking River." The employer filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, contending that the PAGA plaintiff lacked standing to pursue the nonindividual PAGA claims, because he had dismissed his individual PAGA claim which the trial court denied.
After conceding that the word "and" is "usually ......
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