Huff v. Securitas: Ct. of App. Confirms PAGA’s Purpose in Refusing to Limit Penalties to Only Those L.C. Violations that Affected Plaintiff Personally

For years, employers and employees have disagreed on the scope of California’s Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”). One hotly-disputed issue is whether the named representative plaintiff needs to have experienced the exact Labor Code violation for which she is pursuing a PAGA claim on behalf of the state and other aggrieved employees. The disagreement turns on the aggrieved employee’s standing, defined under the PAGA statute as “any person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed.” Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(c). Employees construed the “one or more” language to mean that a plaintiff “need not have suffered all PAGA violations for which she seeks to pursue civil penalties” in order to seek civil penalties for those violations under PAGA. Jeske v. Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc., 2012 WL 78242, *13 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 10, 2012). Employers, on the other hand, interpreted the “one or more” language as an acknowledgement that PAGA penalties may be recovered based on more than one type of Labor Code violation, but that plaintiffs “have no standing to bring a PAGA claim” if they did not personally experience the Labor Code violations at issue. Wassink v. Affiliated Computers Services, Inc., 2011 WL 13977358, *3 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2011). In other words, employers read a Rule 23 “typicality” requirement into PAGA.

On May 23, 2018, the California Court of Appeal, Sixth District, resolved the dispute. In Huff v. Securitas Security Servs. USA, Inc., No. H042852, 233 Cal. Rptr. 3d 502 (2018) (slip op. available here), the Court of Appeal analyzed the plain language of the PAGA statute and the legislative intent underlying PAGA. Id. at 6-16. The court reasoned that the defendant’s “proposition that PAGA allows an employee to pursue penalties only for the type of violation he or she has suffered is directly at odds with the provision that an action may be brought by an employee against whom ‘one or more’ of the alleged violations was committed.” Id. at 7-8. “Had the Legislature intended to limit the recovery of a PAGA plaintiff suing in a representative capacity to only the penalties for employees affected by the same Labor Code violation as the plaintiff, it would have said so in the statute.” Id. at 8.

Unlike the typicality requirements of a class action, “it would be arbitrary to limit the plaintiff’s pursuit of [PAGA] penalties to only those Labor Code violations that affected him or her personally.” Slip op. at 10. Thus, the court’s decision in Huff follows California Supreme Court authority holding that PAGA actions have no typicality requirements, whether an employer argues that a plaintiff be typical of other aggrieved employees in terms of violations committed or typical in terms of job duties assigned. Arias v. Superior Court, 46 Cal.4th 969, 980-81 (2009); accord Baumann v. Chase Invest. Servs., 747 F.3d 1117, 1023 (9th Cir. 2014) (“PAGA contains no requirements of numerosity, commonality, or typicality”).

More importantly, however, the well-reasoned Huff decision is directly in line with the legislature’s purpose in enacting PAGA. PAGA was enacted to solve the problem of inadequate state enforcement resources by allowing private citizens to pursue violations and seek penalties on behalf of the state. Arias, 46 Cal.4th at 980-981; see Brown v. Ralphs Grocery Co., 197 Cal. App. 4th 489, 501 (2011) (“The purpose of the PAGA is not to recover damages or restitution, but to create a means of “deputizing” citizens as private attorneys general to enforce the Labor Code.”). Allowing a plaintiff to enforce Labor Code violations committed by employers against their employees, even when all of those violations may not have been personally suffered by the plaintiff, supports PAGA’s purpose as a law enforcement action designed to protect the public and penalize the employer for past illegal conduct. Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC, 59 Cal.4th 348, 381 (2014).

Huff resolves a dispute that has vexed trial courts. With the California Supreme Court having recently denied review, Huff will govern this standing issue for PAGA cases going forward, ensuring that an aggrieved employee’s duty to serve as a labor law enforcer is not stymied by onerous requirements manufactured by employers.

Authored By:
Bevin Allen Pike, Senior Counsel
CAPSTONE LAW APC