Corbin Williams worked as an insurance adjuster for Alacrity Solutions Group, LLC starting in 2014. While employed, Williams “typically” worked 84-hour weeks – that is, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He was an hourly employee. As a result, he was entitled to overtime pay whenever he worked more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a workweek, and was also entitled to overtime pay whenever he worked a seventh consecutive day.

But defendant did not pay Williams any overtime pay. As a result, defendant violated the Labor Code by not paying Williams all the wages he was owed and by issuing Williams inaccurate wage statements. (§§ 201- 203, 510 et seq., 226, 1174, 1174.5.

Williams’s employment with defendant ended in January 2022.It was not until March 7, 2023 – more than a year after his employment ended – that Williams provided written notice to California’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency (the Agency) of his intent to pursue a PAGA action for defendant’s Labor Code violations.

A few days later, on March 10, 2023, Williams sued defendant. In the operative first amended complaint, Williams asserted a single claim under PAGA seeking civil penalties “on behalf of the State of California and other current and former employees” – but, critically, not on his own behalf – for the alleged overtime and wage statement violations occurring in the “one year prior” to the written notice Williams filed with the Agency on March 7, 2023.

Defendant demurred to the complaint, arguing Williams failed to state a cause of action because (1) his PAGA action was barred by the one-year statute of limitations, and (2) he lacked standing to assert a PAGA action.

In his opposition, Williams effectively conceded that any individual claim he might assert under PAGA was “barred by the statute of limitations,” but maintained that this untimeliness was irrelevant because the PAGA action he alleged sought only to recover civil penalties on behalf of other aggrieved employees and the State.

The trial court issued an order sustaining the demurrer without leave to amend. The Court of Appeal affirmed in the Published case of Williams v. Alacrity Solutions Grp. – B335445 (April 2025).

The Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) (Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq.) authorizes an “aggrieved employee” to step into the shoes of the State of California and sue for civil penalties premised on certain violations of the Labor Code “on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees.”

In this case, a former employee was barred by the statute of limitations from suing his former employer for civil penalties on his own behalf under PAGA. (Code Civ. Proc., § 340, subd. (a) [one-year limitations period].) So the former employee sued solely to recover penalties “on behalf of . . . other current and former employees.”

Is this allowed? The Court of Appeal held it is not. To be a PAGA plaintiff (under the statutes in effect prior to July 1, 2024), a private individual must, among other things, seek to recover civil penalties on his own behalf for that violation (Leeper v. Shipt, Inc. (2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 1001, 1008-1010 (Leeper), review granted Feb. 18, 2025), and must establish that this so-called “individual claim” is timely as to at least one Labor Code violation (Arce v. The Ensign Group, Inc. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 622, 630 (Arce); LaCour v. Marshalls of California, LLC (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 1172, 1184- 1185 (LaCour); Hutcheson v. Superior Court (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 932, 939 (Hutcheson); Esparza v. Safeway, Inc. (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 42, 59 (Esparza); Brown v. Ralphs Grocery Co. (2018) 28 Cal.App.5th 824, 839 (Brown)).

“Because the employee in this case has not and cannot satisfy these requirements, the trial court properly sustained a demurrer to the PAGA action without leave to amend.”

PAGA One Year Statute of Limitations Applies to Penalties