Employment Law Blog

Under the Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”), an aggrieved employee may bring a civil action personally and on behalf of other current or former employees and the State of California to recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations. Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal.4th 348, 380. Seventy-five percent of any PAGA penalties go to the Labor & Workforce Development Agency (“LWDA”), leaving the remaining 25 percent for the employees. Id.; see also ZB, N.A. v. Superior Court (2019) 8 Cal.5th 175, 275. PAGA is intended to augment the limited enforcement capability of LWDA by empowering employees to enforce the Labor Code as representatives of the Agency. Id. at p. 383. A judgment in a PAGA action binds all those who would be bound by a judgment in an action brought by the government. Id. at 381.

Misleading communications “pose a serious threat to the fairness of the litigation process, the adequacy of representation, and the administration of justice generally.” Cheverez, supra, at *4-6; Howard Gunty, supra, 88 Cal.App4th at 582. The “responsibility to monitor communications is heightened where potential class members are unrepresented by their own counsel.” Cheverez at *6. Courts have found that this responsibility is also heightened when an employer engages in unsupervised communications with its workers regarding a settlement offer. See Marino v. CACafe, Inc. (N.D.Cal. April 28, 2017) 2017 WL 1540717 (“in the context of class action litigation, whether pre- or post-certification, unsupervised communications between an employer and its workers present an acute risk of coercion and abuse.”)