Hutcheson v. Superior Court
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The Private Attorneys General Act (Lab. Code 2698 (PAGA)) authorizes “aggrieved employees” to file lawsuits on behalf of the state seeking civil penalties for Labor Code violations, and allocates 75 percent of the recovered penalties to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) and 25 percent to all employees affected by the violation. Before filing suit, the PAGA plaintiff must submit notices of the alleged violations to LWDA and the employer.
The first aggrieved employee submitted a notice of alleged Labor Code violations by his employer to the LWDA and subsequently filed a complaint. That employee later sought to amend his complaint to substitute in as the named plaintiff another aggrieved employee who had worked for the same employer. The superior court granted the employer summary judgment, concluding that the amended PAGA complaint cannot relate back to the original PAGA complaint where the second employee submitted his PAGA notice after the original complaint was filed, reasoning that allowing relation back grants the employee “more time to recover civil penalties than the LWDA itself would have.”
The court of appeal reversed. Relation back would not grant the LWDA or any aggrieved employees the potential for any more than they had under the original complaint; if relation back does not apply, UBS avoids exposure to potential liability for civil penalties over some period of time.
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