On April 12, 2012, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling in Brinker v Superior Court of San Diego County. Plaintiff in that action sought to certify a class of California employees based on the employer’s alleged violations of California’s wage and hour laws. The trial court certified various subclasses, which the Court of Appeal decertified. The Supreme Court affirmed in part, and reversed in part, in the process addressing important substantive and procedural questions.
Substantively, the opinion clarifies the nature of employers’ duty to provide rest periods and meal breaks to non-exempt restaurant employees. Procedurally, the Supreme Court clarifies the process by which class actions are to be certified in California. This post deals with the substantive employment law question only. Larry Golub of this office analyzes of the wider implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling as it relates to class actions here.
With respect to employment law, Brinker provides the following:
(1) Sources of Authority: Wage and hour claims are governed by two complementary and occasionally overlapping sources of authority: the provisions of the Labor Code and the Industrial Welfare Commission’s Wage Orders. Wage Orders are to be accorded the same dignity as statutes and, to the extent a wage order and statute overlap, courts are to seek to harmonize them, as with any two statutes.
Here, Wage Order No. 5, which governs the “public housekeeping industry,” and by its express terms provides the wage and hour rules applicable to restaurant employees, was at issue. Also at issue were related statutes that apply to restaurant employees, in particular California Labor Code §§ 226.7, 512, and 516.
However, as noted below, the opinion reaches well beyond the restaurant employment context, since the terms and provisions that the Brinker Court addresses appear in wage orders applicable to other industries.
(2) Rest Periods: Wage Order No. 5 provides that every restaurant employer must authorize and permit all employees to take rest breaks, which insofar as practicable, must be in the middle of each work period. The authorized rest period is to be based on the total hours worked daily at a rate of ten (10) minutes net rest time per four (4) hours or major fraction thereof. However, a rest period need not be authorized for employees whose total daily work time is less than three and one-half (3½) hours.
At issue in Brinker was the meaning of the term “major fraction.” The Supreme Court ruled that “major fraction” means a “fraction greater than one-half.” Therefore the rest time required is the number of hours worked divided by four, rounded down if the fractional part is half or less than half and rounded up if it is more, times 10 minutes.
The practical effect of this rule is that employees:
are entitled to 10 minutes’ rest for shifts from three and one-half hours to six hours in length, 20 minutes for shifts of more than six hours up to 10 hours, 30 minutes for shifts of more than 10 hours up to 14 hours, and so on.”
(3) Rest Period Timing: The Court found that restaurant employers do not have a legal duty to permit their employees a rest period before any meal period. As the Court noted, neither the Labor Code nor the Wage Orders “speaks to the sequence of meal and rest breaks.”
(4) Meal Periods: With respect to meal periods, a restaurant employer must relieve the employee of all duty for the designated period, but need not ensure that the employee does not work.
The employer satisfies this obligation if it relieves its employees of all duty, relinquishes control over their activities and permits them a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted 30-minute break, and does not impede or discourage them from doing so. But the employer is “not obliged to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed.” However, what will suffice may vary from industry to industry, the Court noted.
(5) Meal Period Timing: The Court concluded that, absent waiver, a first meal period must occur no later than the end of a restaurant employee’s fifth hour of work, and a second meal period must follow no later than the end of the employee’s tenth hour of work. No additional timing requirements apply.
SIGNIFICANCE: California imposes serious penalties on employers who violate employment laws. With respect to wage and hour claims, litigation can be expensive, involving among other things the risk of paying attorney’s fees. Moreever, although the penalties can be dire, the rules are often unclear. To the extent the Supreme Court has provided some clearer benchmarks for how a restaurant employer must provide for rest and meal breaks, Brinker is important and should guide employer conduct.
Furthermore, the opinion has significance beyond the restaurant industry. Although only Wage Order No. 5 was directly at issue in this case, provisions similar and even identical to the one at issue in this case occur in other wage orders applicable to other industries. For example, the term “major fraction thereof” appears in most, if not all, other wage orders relating to other industries. Thus Brinker has applicability and importance to all employers, and it should be carefully reviewed.
