{"id":10889,"date":"2026-06-06T10:57:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T10:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/california-supreme-court-finds-employees-do-not-lose-standing-to-pursue-paga-claims-if-they-settle-individual-claims-for-labor-code-violations\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T10:57:04","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T10:57:04","slug":"california-supreme-court-finds-employees-do-not-lose-standing-to-pursue-paga-claims-if-they-settle-individual-claims-for-labor-code-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/california-supreme-court-finds-employees-do-not-lose-standing-to-pursue-paga-claims-if-they-settle-individual-claims-for-labor-code-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"California Supreme Court Finds Employees Do Not Lose Standing to Pursue PAGA Claims If They Settle Individual Claims for Labor Code Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"contentSummaryCollapse\" style=\"--intro-p-height: 10.3125rem;\">\n<p>\n                        <strong>Overview<\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>Employees do not lose standing to pursue a claim under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, Cal. Lab. Code \u00a7\u00a7\u00a02698, et seq., if they settle and dismiss their individual Labor Code violation claims, the California Supreme Court held in <em>Kim<\/em> v.<em> Reins Int\u2019l Cal., Inc.<\/em>, No.\u00a0S246911, \u2014 P.3d \u2014 (Cal. Mar. 12, 2020).<br \/>\u00a0<br \/><strong>The Private Attorneys General Act<\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>The Private Attorneys General Act (\u201cPAGA\u201d) was enacted to facilitate broader enforcement of the California Labor Code.\u00a0 PAGA allows \u201caggrieved employees\u201d to pursue civil penalties against their employers on the state\u2019s behalf, provided the employees comply with the notice procedures set forth in the statute.\u00a0 Cal. Lab. Code \u00a7\u00a7\u00a02699, 2699.3.\u00a0 An \u201caggrieved employee\u201d is defined as \u201cany person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Id.<\/em> \u00a7 2699(c).<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>PAGA essentially deputizes aggrieved employees to act as a private attorney general to enforce California\u2019s workplace laws.\u00a0 The civil penalties a PAGA plaintiff may recover on the state\u2019s behalf are distinct from the statutory damages that may be available to employees suing for individual violations of the Labor Code.\u00a0 Of the civil penalties recovered, 75% goes to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and 25% goes to the aggrieved employees.\u00a0 <em>Id.<\/em> \u00a7 2699(i).<br \/>\u00a0<br \/><strong>Case Background<\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>Defendant Reins International California, Inc. operates restaurants in California and employed Plaintiff Justin Kim as a training manager.\u00a0 Kim sued Reins in a putative class action, asserting claims for failure to pay wages and overtime, failure to provide meal and rest breaks, failure to provide accurate wage statements, waiting time penalties, and unfair competition.\u00a0 The complaint also sought civil penalties under PAGA.\u00a0 Kim later accepted a settlement offer and dismissed all of his individual claims, leaving only the PAGA claim for resolution.\u00a0 Reins successfully moved for summary adjudication on the ground that Kim lacked standing.\u00a0 The trial court reasoned that Kim\u2019s rights had been completely redressed by the settlement and dismissal of his individual claims and that he was no longer an \u201caggrieved employee.\u201d\u00a0 After the decision was affirmed on appeal, the California Supreme Court granted review.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/><strong>The California Supreme Court Decision<\/strong>\u00a0<br \/>On March 12, 2020, the California Supreme Court held that \u201c[s]ettlement of individual claims does not strip an aggrieved employee of standing, as the state\u2019s authorized representative, to pursue PAGA remedies.\u201d\u00a0 The Court rejected Reins\u2019 argument that Kim was no longer an \u201caggrieved employee\u201d because he accepted compensation for his injury.\u00a0 The Court stated that standing under PAGA is based on the employer\u2019s violation, not the injury suffered by the employee.\u00a0 The Court found that \u201cKim became an aggrieved employee, and had PAGA standing, when one or more Labor Code violations were committed against him.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSettlement did not nullify these violations.\u201d\n                    <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Overview\u00a0Employees do not lose standing to pursue a claim under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004, Cal. Lab. Code \u00a7\u00a7\u00a02698, et seq., if they settle and dismiss [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1434,300,6218,143,676,674,6489,3276,4436,7625,7775,448,241,533,3163],"class_list":["post-10889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-california","tag-claims","tag-code","tag-court","tag-employees","tag-finds","tag-individual","tag-labor","tag-lose","tag-paga","tag-pursue","tag-settle","tag-standing","tag-supreme","tag-violations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}