Employment and Labor

Aggrieved employees with their own Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) lawsuits are not automatically entitled to intervene in another employee’s PAGA action, according to the California Supreme Court.

In May 2018, Lyft driver Tina Turrieta sent notice to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) of representative claims she wanted to bring under PAGA based on Lyft’s alleged violation of several provisions of the Labor Code. She filed suit in July 2018.

Turrieta and Lyft signed an agreement settling her lawsuit in early December 2019 and scheduled an approval hearing for January 2020.

Brandon Olson and Million Seifu—also drivers for Lyft who had each filed their own PAGA actions seeking civil penalties—filed separate motions to intervene in Turrieta’s action and submitted objections to the settlement.

The trial court denied the motions, approved the settlement, and later denied the motions of Olson and Seifu to vacate the judgment. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Olson appealed, arguing that, as a deputized agent of the state under PAGA, he had the right, on behalf of the state, to intervene in Turrieta’s action, to move to vacate the judgment in that action, and to have the court consider his objections to the proposed settlement.

The state’s highest court disagreed.

“PAGA provides that an aggrieved employee, after complying with specified procedural prerequisites, may ‘commence a civil action’ to recover civil penalties that the...

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