Employment, Wage & Hour Regulation, PAGA, Defense Costs Not Recoverable From Dept. of Industrial Relations, 1, 5
A defendant employer that has prevailed against a PAGA suit cannot recover its costs of suit from the Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, Labor & Workforce Development Agency unless the LWDA has participated in the litigation–even though the LWDA is the real party in interest in the PAGA suit. The entity on whose behalf a qui tam plaintiff sues is not itself a party to the action “unless and until the entity intervenes in the action.”