Archives for April 27, 2025

By: PAGA Update: Cal. Court of Appeal Confirms PAGA Plaintiffs Must Have a Timely Individual PAGA Claim

In a decision with important implications for many pending Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) lawsuits, a California Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal of a representative PAGA action as untimely because the plaintiff did not submit a PAGA notice letter within one year of their last day of employment. The court’s decision in Williams v. Alacrity Solutions Group, LLC, which was published on April 22, 2025, holds that PAGA plaintiffs “must, among other things, seek to recover civil penalties on [their] own behalf … and must establish that [their] so-called ‘individual claim’ is timely as to at least one Labor Code violation.”

While this decision is consistent with the presently operative PAGA provisions, effective July 1, 2024, the Williams v. Alacrity case is governed by the PAGA statutes in effect before the amendments. Nonetheless, the appellate court concluded that the amendments simply made “the already-existing timeliness requirement explicit within PAGA itself.” 

Notably, the appellate court adopted the reasoning in Leeper v. Shipt, Inc., which, as discussed in our recent blog post, was recently taken under review by the Cal. Supreme Court. Such reliance is unsurprising because both decisions, Williams v. Alacrity and Leeper v. Shipt, were decided by the California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District.

The Leeper v. Shipt decision held that a PAGA action necessarily includes both individual PAGA claims based on violations the plaintiff experienced and non-individual PAGA claims based on violations other allegedly  aggrieved employees experienced. Under Leeper, a PAGA plaintiff must seek to recover civil penalties on their own behalf; the so-called “headless” PAGA claims are not permitted. The Williams v. Alacrity decision is thus a logical extension of the Leeper v. Shipt decision. 

Employers can rely on both decisions while the Leeper v. Shipt case is under review. The decisions will be particularly impactful on PAGA actions in the Counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo, which fall under California’s Second Appellate District. 

Employers litigating PAGA actions in other jurisdictions should anticipate the argument from PAGA plaintiffs that there is a split of authority between Williams v. Alacrity and Leeper v. Shipt, on the one hand, and Johnson v. Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc., Balderas v. Fresh Start Harvesting, Inc., and Rodriguez v. Packers Sanitation Services Ltd., LLC, on the other hand. That is especially true for employers litigating PAGA actions in California’s Fourth Appellate District, covering the Counties of San Diego, Orange and others, as that appellate court published the decisions in both Rodriguez v. Packers and Johnson v. Maxim Healthcare. 

Our prior posts on these cases generally explain how employers can distinguish them and demonstrate that there is no real split of authority. For example:

• “[T]he holding in Johnson should be constrained to its facts … specifically, the fact that Johnson was a current employee asserting a continuing violation theory,” and thus it does not stand for the proposition that PAGA plaintiff may be “allowed to maintain a purely representative PAGA claim on behalf of others.” (See prior post here.)
   
• “Balderas merely determined whether allegations were sufficient to overcome a motion to strike a complaint, and Balderas’ complaint alleged that she sought to recover civil penalties under PAGA ‘for all aggrieved employees, including herself and other aggrieved employees.’ Balderas’ PAGA action was not purely representative, limited to ‘non-individual PAGA claims’ brought solely on behalf of other aggrieved employees, and excluding claims on behalf of Balderas herself.” (See prior post here.)
   
• “The Rodriguez decision does not create a split of authority on the issue of whether every PAGA action includes an individual PAGA claim; the appellate court expressly declined to consider that issue. Instead, the Rodriguez decision concludes that trial courts resolving motions to compel arbitration must adopt the PAGA plaintiff’s representations about the scope of their PAGA claim.” (See prior post here.)

Overall, the Williams v. Alacrity decision is another positive development for California employers forced to defend predatory PAGA lawsuits. As the court observed, its decision is consistent with the Legislature’s recent “observation that PAGA’s goal of ‘bolster[ing] labor law enforcement’ had been ‘manipulated over its 20-year history by certain trial attorneys as a money-making scheme,’” and that the intent behind PAGA would be “thwarted” by allowing private individuals to sue under PAGA “10, 20 or 30 years after leaving the defendant-employer’s employ.” The decision adds to the growing judicial consensus preserving the statute’s intended role as a vehicle for timely and meaningful labor enforcement—not a vehicle for speculative and opportunistic litigation.

If you have any questions about this blog post or PAGA litigation strategy, please contact the author, Corey Cabral, Chair of CDF’s PAGA Litigation Practice Group, or your favorite CDF attorney. We will continue to monitor the evolving PAGA legal landscape, so if you haven’t already, subscribe to CDF’s California Labor & Employment Law Blog to ensure you don’t miss out on future posts.