SAN FRANCISCO ­— In a win for plaintiff-side labor lawyers, the California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that employers can be required to turn over a broad array of company records in the early stages of litigation under the state's Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).

The unanimous decision in Williams v. Marshalls of CA is the first to explicitly deal with the scope of allowable discovery under PAGA, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the state over violations of the California Labor Code and carries steep statutory penalties.

The law has been an increasingly valuable tool for the California plaintiffs bar in employment cases since the state high court ruled in 2014 in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles that PAGA claims cannot be routed to private arbitration.