For civil actions alleging a violation of an article of the Labour Code listed in article 2699.5, the injured employee or representative must first “notify in writing, by online filing with the Employment and Human Resources Development Agency (LWDA) and by registered letter to the employer, the specific provisions of this Code that have been violated, including the facts and theories supporting the alleged offence”. 27 The employee must also pay a filing fee of $75.28. Similarly, the employer must pay a $75 filing fee for each response to this notice.29 Employees sometimes submit individual wage and hour claims in addition to AMP claims. In the past, some employers settled individual claims in the hope that the employee would lose the right to pursue PAGA claims. In Kim v. Seventy-five percent of a settlement or judgment in a PAGA case is distributed to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), while the remaining 25 percent is distributed to injured employees.4 Lawyers representing injured employees typically claim one-third of the amount recovered. Thus, a three-hundred-thousand-dollar PAGA settlement will typically result in lawyers receiving one hundred thousand dollars, LWDA one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and employees only fifty thousand dollars. In this scenario, lawyers representing injured employees receive twice as much as their clients. Some companies have lobbied for PAGA to be eliminated or reduced in California.5 75% of the clawback amount will be distributed to the California Labor and Human Resources Development Agency to help enforce labor laws and educate employers and employees about their rights and obligations under state law.
Once the employee has properly reported Cal/OSHA violations, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health will investigate the alleged violation based on California Labor Code Section 6300, etc. 45 For example, employment contracts that prevent employees from filing class actions or require them to arbitrate labor disputes are unenforceable under PAGA. Not all legal remedies for violations of the California Labor Code are civil remedies that may be invoked under the Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA), Laboratory Code, ยง 2698 et seq. Until now, civil remedies were enforceable only by state labor law authorities before PAGA. An action for civil sanction is, in principle, a criminal prosecution measure that serves the public and not the interest of private parties. Other remedies, such as reimbursement of unpaid wages, could be claimed directly from workers long before PAGA. Civil penalties are imposed in addition to the actual losses suffered. They are intended to punish the employer for misconduct, often without reference to the actual harm suffered.
Legal damages, on the other hand, are primarily intended to compensate employees for losses actually suffered, although, like penalties, they may also attempt to shape the employer`s behavior as a secondary objective. The court also drew a distinction between a PAGA lawsuit and a class action, finding that in a class action, the representative plaintiff who voluntarily settles his or her claim no longer has an interest in the class and may lose the ability to represent the class. Conversely, PAGA lawsuits have no individual component and the plaintiff only brings the action as a representative of the State of California on behalf of all affected employees.