PAGA Statute: Filing, Penalties, and Employer Cure Rights

A PAGA claim in California is a lawsuit an employee files under the Private Attorneys General Act to collect civil penalties from an employer that violated the Labor Code, with the state treated as the real party in interest. You file on behalf of yourself and other workers who suffered the same violations, you must give written notice to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) before you can sue, and most of what you recover goes to the state rather than to you. A major round of amendments took effect in June 2024 and changed who can file, how penalties are calculated, and how employers can head off a lawsuit by fixing the problem.

Who Can File a PAGA Claim

Only an “aggrieved employee” has standing. Under the current statute, you personally must have suffered each violation you want to allege during the limitations period.¹ If your employer gave you deficient wage statements and skipped your meal breaks but you were never shorted on overtime, you can bring PAGA claims for the wage statement and meal break violations on behalf of yourself and coworkers, but you cannot add the overtime claim to your case.

That rule is tighter than it used to be. Before 2024, a worker who personally experienced a single violation could sweep in every other Labor Code violation the employer committed against anyone.

One narrow exception: a nonprofit legal aid organization that has litigated PAGA cases for at least five years before January 1, 2025 can serve as counsel of record and pursue claims on behalf of employees against whom violations were committed, without the lead plaintiff having personally suffered every violation.¹

What Violations Qualify

PAGA reaches any Labor Code provision that carries a civil penalty collectible by the LWDA.¹ Section 2699.5 lists more than 100 specific sections you can enforce this way, including unpaid overtime, missed meal and rest breaks, late final paychecks, retaliation, and worker misclassification.

Wage statement violations are among the most commonly litigated. California requires an itemized pay stub every pay period showing gross wages, total hours worked, all hourly rates, deductions, the employer’s name and address, and the dates covered.² A missing item can support a PAGA penalty on top of any damages you recover separately under Section 226.

Health and safety violations under Division 5 of the Labor Code are also covered, but they go through a separate notice procedure routed through the Division of Occupational Safety and Health.³

How to File

Send the LWDA Notice First

Before any court filing, you must send a written notice to both the LWDA and your employer. The notice has to identify the specific Labor Code sections you believe were violated and lay out the facts and legal theories supporting the allegations.³ Vague accusations will not do. The agency needs enough detail to evaluate whether an investigation is warranted.

You file the notice through the Department of Industrial Relations’ online PAGA Filing Portal and send a copy to the employer by certified mail.⁴ Uploading alone does not count as service on the employer; the certified mailing is a separate, mandatory step.⁵ The employee’s filing and any employer response each carry a $75 fee, with waivers available under the same rules as court filing fees.

Wait Out the Review Period

Once the notice is filed, the LWDA has 65 calendar days from the postmark date to decide what it wants to do. Three things can happen:

The agency notifies you and the employer within 60 days that it will not investigate, and you can proceed to court.
65 days pass with no response, and you can file in superior court.
The agency decides to investigate. It then has 120 additional days to issue a citation; if none issues in that window, you regain the right to file your own lawsuit.³

A complaint filed before the waiting period runs is procedurally defective, so the clock matters.

Watch the One-Year Deadline

PAGA claims carry a one-year statute of limitations under Code of Civil Procedure Section 340. Your LWDA notice must go out within one year of the last violation you are alleging. The 65-day review period tolls the clock, so you do not lose time while the agency considers the matter. Some courts have applied a 60-day relation-back window for amending an existing complaint after the limitations period runs, but the safest practice is to send the notice well before the one-year mark.

What the Employer Can Do Before You Sue

The 2024 amendments gave employers a structured chance to cure violations and shrink or eliminate penalties, which can shape what is left of your case by the time you reach court.

Small Employer Cure

Employers with fewer than 100 total employees nationwide during the year before the notice can submit a confidential cure proposal to the LWDA within 33 days of receiving it. The count covers full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers. The LWDA has 14 days to decide whether to hold a conference, which must take place within 30 days if scheduled. If the agency finds a cure is possible, it issues a cure plan; the employer has 45 days after the conference to complete it, then submits a sworn notice with supporting records, and the LWDA has 20 days to verify.⁶ If the agency confirms the cure, that violation cannot be part of a later PAGA lawsuit.

Wage Statement Cure

A separate cure path exists for wage statement violations and is open to employers of any size. The cure must be completed within 33 days of the notice postmark date, and making employees whole requires paying all amounts owed going back three years from the notice date, plus 7% interest, any legally required liquidated damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs as the LWDA determines them.⁶

What You Can Recover

Per-Pay-Period Penalties

PAGA penalties stack per employee per pay period, which is why they add up fast across a workforce. When no specific penalty is set elsewhere in the Labor Code, the default is $100 per aggrieved employee per pay period, with several variations:¹

$25 per employee per pay period for wage statement violations where the missing information is easily determinable from the pay stub itself.
$50 for a violation that resulted from a nonrecurring event lasting no more than 30 consecutive days or four consecutive pay periods, whichever is shorter.
$15 if the employer cured the violation through the LWDA process but did not take steps to prevent recurrence; $0 if the employer cured and took reasonable prospective-compliance steps.
$200 only where a court or the LWDA found within the prior five years that the same practice was unlawful, or the employer’s conduct was malicious, fraudulent, or oppressive.

Employers that pay weekly get a 50% reduction on whatever per-pay-period penalty otherwise applies, because weekly schedules generate more pay periods per year.

Overall Penalty Caps

Penalties are also capped based on employer conduct. If the employer took all reasonable steps to comply before receiving the notice, total penalties are capped at 15% of what they would otherwise be. If those steps were taken within 60 days after receiving the notice, the cap is 30%.

How the Money Gets Split

You do not keep all the penalties you recover. For notices filed on or after June 19, 2024, 65% goes to the LWDA and 35% goes to the aggrieved employees.⁶ Notices filed before that date follow the older 75/25 split. The LWDA’s share funds labor law enforcement and education programs.¹

These civil penalties are separate from unpaid wages. If your employer shorted you on overtime, you can pursue a wage claim to recover the money you were actually owed while also seeking PAGA penalties for the same underlying violation. The penalties punish the employer; the wage claim compensates you.

Injunctive Relief

The 2024 amendments also authorize courts to grant injunctive relief in PAGA cases.¹ A judge can order the employer to stop violating the Labor Code and to put specific compliance measures in place. Before 2024, PAGA plaintiffs could recover only civil penalties.

If You Signed an Arbitration Agreement

Many California employers require arbitration agreements as a condition of hire. In Adolph v. Uber Technologies (2023), the California Supreme Court held that an employee compelled to arbitrate individual PAGA claims does not lose standing to litigate representative PAGA claims in court.⁷

What happens next depends on the arbitrator. If the arbitrator finds you are an aggrieved employee, that finding binds the court and you keep standing to press the representative claim. If the arbitrator finds no individual violation occurred, you lack standing and the representative claim fails too. Trial courts can stay the court case while the individual claim moves through arbitration so the rulings do not conflict.

Settlement and Attorney’s Fees

Because the state has a direct financial stake, PAGA settlements cannot be finalized privately. Every settlement goes to a court for approval, and the court independently reviews whether the terms are fair, reasonable, and consistent with PAGA’s enforcement goals.⁶ The parties must submit the proposed settlement to the LWDA through the filing portal at the same time they present it to the judge. Settlements involving health and safety violations must be at least as protective as existing state and federal law.

A prevailing employee is entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and litigation costs from the employer. That fee-shifting rule is what makes PAGA cases viable for workers who could not otherwise afford counsel. Most PAGA attorneys work on contingency and rely on the statutory fee award if the case succeeds.

1
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 2699
2
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 226
3
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code 2699.3
4
Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Private Attorneys General Act
5
Department of Industrial Relations. Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) – Filing
6
Labor and Workforce Development Agency. Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) Frequently Asked Questions
7
Justia Law. Adolph v Uber Technologies Inc