Shin

BACKGROUND

I. PAGA Background

“[T]he Legislature enacted PAGA to create new civil penalties for Labor Code violations and ‘ “to allow aggrieved employees, acting as private attorneys general, to recover [those] penalties.” ’ [Citation.] Specifically, PAGA authorizes ‘an aggrieved employee,’ acting as a proxy or agent of the [LWDA], to bring a civil action against an employer ‘on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees’ to recover civil penalties for Labor Code violations they have sustained.” (Adolph, supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 1113.) Under the former version of PAGA that applies here, the LWDA receives 75 percent of any penalties recovered and aggrieved employees 25 percent. (Former § 2699, subd. (i), as amended by Stats. 2016, ch. 31, § 189; see § 2699, subd. (m) [LWDA now receives 65 percent of penalties and aggrieved employees 35 percent].) “To have standing to bring a PAGA action, a plaintiff must be an ‘aggrieved employee,’ ” which formerly meant “ ‘any person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed.’ ” (Adolph, supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 1116, quoting former § 2699, subd. (c), as…