The Private Attorneys’ General Act (PAGA) is continuing to make news as a decision from the California Supreme Court — amongst other holdings — determined that the Legislature’s overall PAGA design exempted public entities from its enforcement (Stone v. Alameda Health System, S279137 (Aug. 15, 2024)).
This comes on the heels of a flurry of previous PAGA-related court activity and a major legislative reform package.
The PAGA’s primary design allows aggrieved employees to recover civil penalties from employers for Labor Code violations. However, a common California Labor Code principle is that if a Labor Code section does not expressly apply to public entities, then public entities are exempt from its rule. This principle has never been applied to a PAGA action until now.
Alameda County, like all California counties, has a duty under the law to provide medical services for its indigent populations. After a period of managing this duty itself, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors asked the California Legislature for permission to create a separate public entity to perform this duty. The Legislature agreed, and the Alameda Health System (AHS) was created as a “separate public agency” for this purpose.
Tamelin Stone and Amanda Kunwar worked at Highland Hospital, an AHS-run facility. They brought suit against AHS for several Labor Code violations and a representative PAGA action on behalf of themselves and other aggrieved AHS employees. The trial court dismissed the...
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