PAGA

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The California Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) is set to undergo a significant overhaul, the first since its enactment nearly two decades ago.  On June 18, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that an agreement was reached between business and labor groups to reform PAGA.  The agreement comes on the heels of the looming June 27, 2024 deadline to remove a PAGA proposition from the November 5, 2024 ballot.  The agreement, if passed by California’s state legislature, would overhaul several aspects of PAGA and withdraw a ballot measure that would have repealed PAGA’s statutory scheme altogether.  Continue Reading Will PAGA Be Reformed?

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Alex Kotliarskyi, Unsplash

In Johnson v. Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC, the Ninth Circuit sided with the California Supreme Court’s ruling in Adolph v. Uber Techs. Inc., 14 Cal. 5th 1104 (2023), and held that the district court was correct to send the individual plaintiff’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims to arbitration, but reversed the dismissal of the representative PAGA claims, holding they must remain in court.  Although whether PAGA representative claims should remain in court after the plaintiff has been compelled to arbitrate his or her individual claims remains unsettled under the Federal Arbitration Action (“FAA”), and ultimately will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit ruling wasn’t particularly surprising.  What is more interesting is the concurrence by Judge Kenneth Lee, who noted some tension between the FAA and Adolph. Continue Reading Trying to Reconcile the Tension between the Federal Arbitration Act and Adolph

As we predicted (here), employees can be compelled to individually arbitrate their Labor Code claims under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”), but an arbitration agreement that prohibits employees from bringing a representative action on behalf of other employees in court violates California public policy.  In Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., S274671 (July 17, 2023) (“Adolph”), the California Supreme Court analyzed whether an employee retained standing to bring a PAGA action on behalf of other aggrieved employees despite the existence of a valid arbitration agreement requiring arbitration of the employee’s individual PAGA claims.  The Court answered with an unequivocal and unanimous “yes.”  Continue Reading The California Supreme Court Sets Viking River Cruise Decision Adrift

The California Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Adolph (Erik) v. Uber Technologies, Inc., S274671, on the question of whether Private Attorneys’ General Act claims under Labor Code section 2698, et seq. (PAGA) can be brought on behalf of other employees in court despite a plaintiff’s agreement to arbitrate his/her individual PAGA claims. Continue Reading Individual Arbitration Agreements and PAGA Representative Claims—Where Do We Stand Now?

Employment practitioners will be waiting with bated breath now that the California Supreme Court has granted the defendant’s petition for review in Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Adolph, S274671.  This is the second PAGA case California’s top court will review since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana, which held that the Federal Arbitration Act requires courts to enforce parties’ arbitration agreements and preempts conflicting state laws that invalidate contractual waivers of the right to assert representative claims under PAGA.  See our prior coverage of Viking River Cruises here.Continue Reading California Supreme Court to Address Viking River Cruises