PAGA litigation has burdened California employers for almost two decades. Since PAGA's passage into law, the number of filed PAGA actions has continued to increase. The flooding of the dockets with such cases is largely due to court decisions over the years that have expanded PAGA's reach and allowed California employees to fairly easily bring claims for civil penalties for California Labor Code violations on behalf of themselves and other workers. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel for California employers in 2022, as we wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the case of Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, which involves the issue of whether arbitration agreement waivers of employees' rights to pursue a PAGA representative action are enforceable. This article sets forth a brief history of PAGA's passage into law, the current legal landscape of PAGA, and what the future of PAGA may look like.

The Power of PAGA

The Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) is a California statute that allows private individuals to stand in the shoes of the state to bring representative actions on behalf of other "aggrieved employees" for alleged wage and hour law violations. PAGA penalties can get very high very quickly – often in the amounts of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

Since its passage into law, there has been a consistent flood of PAGA litigation in California. The large volume of PAGA cases continued after the Appellate Court in...

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