Getting served with a wage and hour class action or PAGA lawsuit is one of the worst days a California business owner or executive can have. The complaint typically alleges nearly every wage and hour violation in the Labor Code, claims to be brought on behalf of every employee you have had over the last
This week Anne McWilliams and I presented our masterclass on the mid-year PAGA and class action update for California employers, and I want to share some of the data we covered because it surprised even me. When the Legislature reformed PAGA in June 2024, many of us expected the volume and value of these cases
Back in February, we covered the five key provisions of the sweeping PAGA regulations proposed by California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA). Five months later, those regulations are still not final—but they are moving, and this week the state signaled it has no intention of backing down. At a gathering of employment lawyers
There is a persistent myth in business that bigger is better—that the way to handle a harder problem is to throw more people at it. If a five-person team is good, a fifty-person team must be ten times better. Most executives who have actually run a growing company know this isn’t quite how it works.
Most California employers think about their time and attendance records in only one context: the day a plaintiff’s lawyer subpoenas them. By then, the records are working against you — every late meal punch, every missing premium, every off-the-clock minute becomes a line item in someone else’s damages model. But the same data that creates
California employers have extensive obligations under the Labor Code to create and maintain accurate time records and pay stubs. The Labor Code itself doesn’t prescribe a specific format or technology, but the way employers handle these records has only grown more important — particularly after the 2024 Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) reform, which ties
California employers face one of the most complex and actively enforced wage-and-hour landscapes in the country, and most of that complexity gets triggered the moment a schedule is built. Daily overtime, meal and rest break timing, premium pay obligations, split shifts, reporting time pay, and PAGA exposure all flow from how shifts are scheduled and
If you are a California employer, there is a major unresolved issue in PAGA litigation that could significantly impact your exposure—and your ability to enforce your arbitration agreements.
It is called a “headless” PAGA claim, and right now, California courts are split on whether these claims are even allowed.
The result: uncertainty, inconsistent outcomes, and
Most California employers took care of the February 1, 2026 distribution deadline under SB 294 — the Workplace Know Your Rights Act. But many have not yet addressed the law’s second compliance obligation, which arrives on March 30, 2026. That deadline is now two weeks away.
By March 30, every California employer must give current
California is technically an at-will employment state. But practically speaking, that designation comes with so many asterisks that employers who treat at-will as a blank check to terminate anyone at any time are setting themselves up for costly litigation.
Here are five things every California employer needs to understand about the at-will doctrine:
1. At-Will