MYMONEY HOUR PAGA CODE
Labor Code Section 226 Does Not Require Employers to List a Corresponding Hourly Rate When Making an Overtime Adjustment Payment Accordingly, the court remanded this claim back to state court.
MYMONEY HOUR PAGA FULL
Second, PAGA represents a permanent, full assignment of California’s interest to the aggrieved employee, unlike traditional qui tam actions which represent only a partial assignment of the state’s interest.īecause Magadia could not take advantage of the qui tam exception, he lacked standing under Article III to bring a PAGA claim based on alleged meal-break violations. First, unlike a traditional qui tam action, PAGA implicates the interests of nonparty aggrieved employees.
Even though the California Supreme Court has long treated PAGA as “a type of qui tam action,” the Ninth Circuit held that PAGA is too different from a traditional qui tam action to benefit from the exception to the Constitution’s “injury in fact” requirement. The Ninth Circuit rejected Magadia’s plea. The private plaintiff need not have suffered an individualized injury to establish Article III standing because he or she is deemed the assignee of the government’s injury.
A qui tam statute allows a private plaintiff to sue in the government’s name for the violation of a public right. Though the district court found that Magadia had not suffered a meal-break injury himself, which would normally preclude a finding of “injury in fact,” Magadia argued that he could satisfy the “injury in fact” element because PAGA is a qui tam statute. To have standing, a plaintiff must show, among other things, an “injury in fact.” That is, the plaintiff “must show that he or she suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” To maintain a cause of action in federal court, a plaintiff must have “standing” under Article III of the United States Constitution. First, did Magadia have standing under Article III of the United States Constitution to pursue a PAGA claim for alleged meal-break violations that he never suffered personally? Second, did Walmart violate California Labor Code section 226(a) by making overtime adjustment payments in lump sums without listing a corresponding hourly rate? The court answered “no” to both questions.Īn Employee Does Not Have Constitutional Standing to Pursue a PAGA Claim in Federal Court for Labor Code Violations He or She Did Not Suffer On appeal, the Ninth Circuit addressed two fundamental questions.
The district court ultimately awarded Magadia nearly $102 million for the three claims: $96 million for the adjusted-overtime-rate claim, $5.8 million in PAGA penalties for the final-wage-statement claim, and $70,000 in PAGA penalties for the meal-break claim. Though this finding doomed Magadia’s ability to assert a class claim for meal-break violations, the court still allowed Magadia to pursue his PAGA claim based on meal-break violations allegedly incurred by other Walmart employees. After summary judgment and a bench trial, the district court ruled in favor of Magadia on his two wage-statement claims, but found that Magadia did not suffer any meal-break violations. Walmart removed the case to federal court, and the district court certified a class for each of Magadia’s three claims. Plaintiff Roderick Magadia brought a class and representative PAGA action against Walmart alleging that Walmart did not provide accurate pay rate information on its wage statements, failed to furnish the pay-period dates with his last paycheck, and did not pay adequate compensation for missed meal breaks.
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