In a much-anticipated decision, the California Supreme Court will be resolving a circuit split on whether employees may bring “headless” PAGA claims. PAGA, of course, is a provision of the California Labor Code allowing an employee who experiences a Labor Code violation to seek penalties from the employer “on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees.” PAGA authorizes employees to seek these “PAGA penalties” on behalf of the State, with 65% of the penalties recovered being paid to the State.
What is a headless PAGA claim?
A headless PAGA claim is when the representative plaintiff in a PAGA action does not seek to recover civil penalties for the violations against himself, but seeks penalties only for the violations against his co-workers. See CRST Expedited, Inc. v. Superior Court (2025) 112 Cal. App. 5th 872, 882 (explaining the concept of a headless PAGA claim). This raises the question: why would someone choose to do this?
Why would an employee pursue a headless PAGA claim?
It’s a long story! Unlike employment class actions, PAGA representative actions may not be foreclosed through the use of arbitration agreements in which employers require employees to resolve disputes through “individual-only” arbitration. See Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC (2014) 59 Cal. 4th 348, 383. The ability to prevent class actions through arbitration agreements – a relatively recent development – greatly elevated the importance of PAGA actions.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court potentially jeopardized PAGA cases by holding that the FAA preempts, at least in part, the California Supreme Court’s ruling PAGA actions may not be compelled to arbitration. Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. 639, 662. The Viking River Court held that a PAGA claim could be split into an “individual” PAGA claim, which could be compelled to arbitration, and a separate “representative” PAGA claim on behalf of other employees. The Court recognized that it was up to the California Supreme Court to determine whether an employee whose “individual” PAGA claim had been compelled to arbitration could nonetheless pursue the “representative” PAGA claims in court. The California Supreme Court wasted little time holding that, yes, a plaintiff can pursue those representative PAGA claims in court, even if his or her individual PAGA claims are compelled to arbitration. See Adolph v. Uber Techs., Inc. (2023) 14 Cal. 5th 1104, 1114.
Since then, courts have often compelled the “individual” PAGA claim to arbitration, while staying the representative PAGA claim in court. This caused extreme delays in relief for the group of employees. It also put the representative plaintiff and his or her attorney in the position of having to litigate an entire individual case (often for a very small amount) and win just to be able to move forward with the PAGA claims of the rest of the group. Out of these hardships was born the “headless” PAGA claim, which attempts to circumvent these roadblocks by disclaiming any “individual” penalties sought by the plaintiff. So, is this a permissible solution for plaintiffs?
The Circuit Split
Courts of Appeal have split on that question. The dispute centers on PAGA’s language allowing a plaintiff to bring a claim “on behalf of himself or herself and other current or former employees” (emphasis added). Cal. Lab. Code § 2699(a).
On one side of the split, courts have concluded that the word “and” means that there must be an individual claim by the plaintiff as well as claims on behalf of other employees – in other words, the PAGA case must have a head! This was exemplified by the Second District’s decisions in Leeper v. Shipt (2024) 107 Cal. App. 5th 1001 and Williams v. Alacrity Solutions Grp. (2025) 110 Cal. App. 5th 932.
On the other side, courts have interpreted the word “and” to mean that PAGA authorizes individual claims “and” it authorizes claims on behalf of other employees, but it does not require them to be brought together. This is exemplified by the Fourth and Fifth Circuit’s decisions in Rodriguez v. Packers Sanitation (2025) 109 Cal. App. 5th 69 and CRST Expedited, Inc. v. Superior Court (2025) 112 Cal. App. 5th 872.
The Impending Resolution
The California Supreme Court granted review of the Leeper case in April 2025. Briefing is scheduled to be complete in December 2025. Employment practitioners are eagerly awaiting the Court’s ruling on this matter of great importance for enforceability of the Labor Code through PAGA. We will report back on the outcome!
*Jacqueline Crispino is an associate at The Jhaveri-Weeks Firm, P.C., where she focuses on employment litigation. Ms. Crispino previously was a fellow at Equal Rights Advocates and a clerk for the Nevada Supreme Court and the Northern District of California. She graduated from Georgetown University and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.