In this issue: Paton v. Advanced Micro Devices: Does a Sabbatical Have to Be Treated Like Vacation?.

Over the years a small but growing number of employers have offered, in addition to traditional vacation, sabbaticals intended to provide their employees with a lengthy period of time away from work for the purpose of rejuvenation and as an incentive to continued employment. The sabbatical is provided only after a lengthy period of employment and, if not taken while eligible, is lost. Obviously, these types of programs are based on sabbaticals in the academic world in which professors are generally provided with a significant period of time off after seven years of employment. In the 1980s, after the Suastez v. Plastic Dress-Up Company case was decided imposing the requirement in California that unused vacation be paid out as wages at the time of termination, the Labor Commissioner in a series of letters developed sabbatical policies which were very narrow due to the concern that employers might try to shift vacation into sabbatical and thus avoid the day-by-day vesting and pay-out rules of the Suastez case.

Recently in Paton v. Advanced Micro Devices, 197 Cal.App.4th 1505 (2011), a California appellate court reviewed a sabbatical program and laid down rules defining when sabbaticals will and will not be considered vacation for the purpose of pay out at the time of termination if the sabbatical has not been used.

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