PAGA Penalties Can Add Up to Trouble for California Employers

PAGA plaintiffs are making a practice of trying to stack PAGA penalties to seeks greater damages. Learn how plaintiff attorneys are turning minor infractions into major headaches for California employers.

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Anthony Zaller is an employment litigation attorney and founding partner of the firm, Zaller Law Group. Primarily focused on helping businesses and entrepreneurs navigate California’s complex employment and business laws, Anthony advises his clients through litigation, governmental agency investigations, and legal compliance issues. He has litigated wage and hour class actions for claims of unpaid wages, missed breaks, unpaid overtime, unreimbursed business expenses, and Private Attorney General Act ("PAGA") representative actions, among other issues. Anthony has also successfully litigated many single plaintiff employment cases including claims of wage and hour violations, breach of contract, wrongful termination, sexual and racial harassment, discrimination, unfair competition, and misappropriation of trade secrets and embezzlement.

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Because AB 673 amends Labor Code Section 210 to allow employees to collect statutory penalties for late wages, that can also be costly. I recently came across an employer that was not calculating Sick Pay at the regular rate of pay. For four different instances, the employee received $500 in back pay, $100 representing a 25% penalty for the 2, 3rd and 4th instances and an additional $700 penalty representing $100 for the first instance and $200 for each subsequent instance. A company could literally owe an employee $2.00 and end up paying $200.50 in penalties. These apply to Meal Premium, Late Wages, Inaccurate Wages, Inaccurate Sick Pay, Inaccurate Vacation; Inaccurate Overtime or ANY wage that is unpaid, underpaid or late… and they add up quickly!