California Court Eases Employee’s Burden in Proving Employer’s Wage Statement Violations
In 2004, the State legislature enacted the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”), which authorizes California employees to sue their employers for Labor Code violations and collect civil penalties that would otherwise be collectible only by California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency. PAGA suits are known as “representative actions,” in which an employee sues “on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees.” Civil penalties recovered in a PAGA action are distributed 75% to the State of California and 25% to the employees.
Recently, a California appellate court, in Eduardo Lopez v. Friant & Associates, LLC, held that an employee can sue his or her employer under PAGA for failure to provide accurate wage statements without showing that the employer’s conduct was “knowing and intentional.” The ruling is significant because employees can also sue their employer for wage statement violations without using the PAGA statute. But when they do, they must show that the employer’s violation was “knowing and intentional” in order to win their case. Thus, the Lopez decision is likely to significantly impact how suits for wage claim violations will be filed in the future. After Lopez, it is unclear why employees would bring lawsuits for “knowing and intentional” wage statement violations when they can bring PAGA claims without proving the wage statement violations were knowing and intentional.
In the Lopez case, the plaintiff, Mr. Lopez, filed an action seeking recovery of civil penalties under PAGA for his employer’s failure to include the last four digits of its employees’ social security numbers or employee identification numbers on their itemized wage statements. The trial court found that the employer had been unaware that this required information was missing and therefore ruled in favor of the employer. The trial court reasoned that Lopez could not prevail because the employer’s omission was not “knowing or intentional” within the meaning of Labor Code section 226, which specifies what information must be included in employee wage statements.
The appellate court reversed the judgment. The Lopez court reasoned a PAGA claim is not subject to Section 226’s “knowing and intentional” requirement, and that the “knowing and intentional” requirement applies only to non-PAGA lawsuits.
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