Does settling your own wage claim end a PAGA case?

Before Kim, a common defence strategy was to settle the named plaintiff's individual claims and argue the representative PAGA action fell with them. The Supreme Court closed that route.

The reasoning is textual. PAGA defines an aggrieved employee as any person who was employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or more of the alleged violations was committed. Neither element is undone by a later settlement — the person was still employed, and the violation was still committed.

The court also noted what a PAGA claim is. Civil penalties under PAGA belong primarily to the state, with the employee acting as a proxy; settling a personal claim for personal damages does not dispose of a claim that is not personally theirs to release.

For a small employer the practical lesson is about expectations rather than tactics. Resolving one person's complaint does not resolve exposure arising from the same practice applied to everyone else, and a settlement negotiated as though it did is likely to be a partial one.