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2 

VIKING RIVER CRUISES, INC. v. MORIANA 

Opinion of the Court 

possible to achieve an adequate level of financing.  The leg-
islature thus decided to enlist employees as private attor-
neys general to enforce California labor law, with the un-
derstanding  that  labor-law  enforcement  agencies  were  to
retain primacy over private enforcement efforts. 

By its terms, PAGA authorizes any “aggrieved employee” 
to initiate an action against a former employer “on behalf of
himself or herself and other current or former employees” 
to obtain civil penalties that previously could have been re-
covered only by the State in an LWDA enforcement action. 
Cal.  Lab.  Code  Ann.  §2699(a).  As  the  text  of  the  statute 
indicates,  PAGA  limits  statutory  standing  to  “aggrieved 
employees”—a term defined to include “any person who was
employed by the alleged violator and against whom one or
more of the alleged violations was committed.”  §2699(c).  To 
bring suit, however, an employee must also exhaust admin-
istrative remedies.  That entails providing notice to the em-
ployer and the LWDA of the violations alleged and the sup-
porting facts and theories.  §2699.3(a)(1)(A).  If the LWDA 
fails to respond or initiate an investigation within a speci-
fied timeframe, the employee may bring suit.  §2699.3(a)(2).
In any successful PAGA action, the LWDA is entitled to 75
percent of the award.  §2699(i).  The remaining 25 percent 
is  distributed  among  the  employees  affected  by  the  viola-
tions at issue.  Ibid. 

California law characterizes PAGA as creating a “type of 
qui  tam  action,”1  Iskanian  v.  CLS  Transp.  Los  Angeles, 
—————— 

1 As we have explained, “qui tam” is the short form of the Latin phrase 
“qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur”—mean-
ing “ ‘who pursues this action on our Lord the King’s behalf as well as his 
own.’ ”  Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Ste-
vens,  529  U. S.  765,  768,  n. 1(2000).    Qui tam  actions  “appear  to  have
originated around the end of the 13th century, when private individuals 
who  had  suffered  injury  began  bringing  actions  in  the  royal  courts  on
both their own and the Crown’s behalf ” and became more of a rarity as 
“royal courts began to extend jurisdiction to suits involving wholly pri-
vate wrongs.”  Id., at 774–775.