Scaled Comp’s August Settlement Pulse recorded about 225 California PAGA and wage-and-hour settlements totaling $157.4 million. The medians tell you where the market sat. They don’t tell you why one employer paid six times what another did for nearly the
The Legislature adjourned on Monday night, August 31, 2026, and everything it passed is now on Governor Newsom’s desk. He has until September 30 to sign or veto each bill. This is his last signing period before his term ends
Most executives operate on a comfortable assumption: the company is the employer, so the company bears the wage and hour liability. Form the entity correctly, keep your corporate housekeeping in order, and your personal assets stay out of the line
As we move through 2026, it remains the perfect time for California employers to return to the fundamentals. With evolving employment laws, local ordinances, aggressive enforcement, and high volumes of wage-and-hour and PAGA claims, getting the basics right continues to
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,
At our recent masterclass, “Exiting with Confidence: Best Practices for Lawful Terminations and Litigation Prevention,” Anne McWilliams, Caylee Scott, and I went back to basics on one of the highest-risk moments in the employment relationship: the termination. We debated whether
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
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
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
If your company is facing a claim under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), most cases end not with a trial but with a negotiated settlement. Understanding where the settlement dollars actually go—and what a judge will scrutinize before signing
