This session we’ve been tracking HB 1076, known as the Qui tam bill, which would allow a private right-of-action for individuals and organizations to sue employers in the place of the state to enforce state labor laws, most of which are currently enforced by the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I).

Last week we mentioned that the bill had been amended and passed out of the policy committee and had moved to the House Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee heard testimony on the bill and is expected to pass it out to floor by the February 22 fiscal committee cutoff deadline. The bill has yet to be scheduled for a committee vote. You can watch the hearing here, at about the 1:58:30 mark.

Similar legislation has been proposed for the last several sessions but stalled before it could pass the Legislature. We first wrote about the original version of the bill here. Some of the amendments from the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee include:

• Clarifying that qui tam actions can be brought to enforce labor statutes and subsequent administrative rules. Claims can be brought for any separate labor law violations arising from a case.
• Setting timeframes for a person to notify L&I of a workplace violation and start qui tam actions and specifies when those statutes of limitation begin to toll.
• Clarifying what agency actions on an alleged violation preclude a qui tam action.
• Lengthening the timeframe for L&I to investigate employer retaliation against qui tam plaintiffs from 30 to 90 days.

The amended bill passed out of House Labor & Workplace Standards on a party line vote in early February. The amended version was heard in Appropriations.