Rojas-Cifuentes v. Superior Court, C085463 (December 21, 2020)
California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) permits an aggrieved employee to bring a representative action on behalf of current or former employees to recover civil penalties for wage-related violations of California’s Labor Code. But as a condition of suit, the employee must provide notice to the employer and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency of the specific provisions of the Labor Code alleged to have been violated, including the facts and theories supporting the alleged violation.
In Rojas-Cifuentes, the Court of Appeal reversed an order that had granted summary adjudication in favor of an employer as to plaintiff’s PAGA claim on the ground the plaintiff’s PAGA notice failed to include sufficient facts and theories to satisfy this notice requirement. The Court of Appeal held a notice satisfies PAGA where it alleges the ultimate fact underlying the PAGA claim and supportive evidentiary facts, even where the notice does not exhaustively explain why the employer purportedly violated the law.
Additionally, the Court of Appeal held that the notice sufficiently specified the particular class of workers harmed by the alleged violations, even though this class was broadly defined to encompass all of the defendant’s current and former non-exempt employees. Moreover, the appellate court concluded the notice was not deficient for failing to specify the employee’s job position or period of employment, holding that the notice satisfied PAGA because its allegations as a whole made it clear the employer allegedly committed the listed wage-and-hour violations against nonexempt employees.
