Friday, April 13, 2012

California Supreme Court: Employers Need Not “Police” Meal Breaks To Ensure They Are Taken

*By B. Jason Rossiter

In California, it is now (finally) clear what an employer’s responsibility is concerning meal breaks.
California Courts have been befuddled for some time concerning meal breaks. Specifically, what happened if a boss told an employee to take a meal break, but the employee got busy and forgot and worked through all or part of the break? Does the mere fact that the boss told the employee to go on break mean that the company satisfied whatever obligation it might have had to provide the employee with a break (assuming, of course, that the boss did not pester the employee to keep working during the break)?

Or, on the other hand, is it the company’s duty to actually make sure the employee takes a meal break when he or she is supposed to? If this is the case, then legions of employees in various industries, who performed a spot of work here and there during meal breaks, might have claims against their employers.  One wonders what a company must do to fulfill such a requirement, if it indeed were a requirement. Should companies tail their employees to the In-N-Out Burger?

After years of waiting, the California Supreme Court has finally answered this question in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court. The Court summarized its key holding at the very beginning of the 54-page opinion:
an employer’s obligation [to provide a meal break] is to relieve its employee of all duty, with the employee thereafter at liberty to use the meal period for whatever purpose he or she desires, but the employer need not ensure that no work is done.
The Court elaborated upon this holding a little later in its opinion (at pp. 36-37):
An employer’s duty with respect to meal breaks under both [Labor Code] section 512, subdivision (a) and [IWC] Wage Order No. 5 is an obligation to provide a meal period to its employees. 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. What will suffice may vary from industry to industry, and we cannot in the context of this class certification proceeding delineate the full range of approaches that in each instance might be sufficient to satisfy the law.
On the other hand, the employer is not obligated to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed. Bona fide relief from duty and the relinquishing of control satisfies the employer’s obligations, and work by a relieved employee during a meal break does not thereby place the employer in violation of its obligations and create liability for premium pay under Wage Order No. 5, subdivision 11(B) and Labor Code section 226.7, subdivision (b).
(Emphasis added). The underlined language is key and is what most California employers likely will focus on. So long as an employer gives its employees meal breaks when required, and legitimately relieves them of all responsibility and lets them do essentially whatever they want (the employee must be “at liberty to use the meal period for whatever purpose he or she desires”), the employer is not at risk of a meal break penalty merely because its employees might start working to some degree during their breaks. As the Court put it, “Proof an employer had knowledge of employees working through meal periods will not alone subject the employer to liability for premium pay; employees cannot manipulate the flexibility granted them by employers to use their breaks as they see fit to generate such liability.”

This holding creates a few new issues, however. California employers who have handbook policies that limit what employees can do during meal breaks might want to rethink those policies, since tying the employee’s hands and requiring them to take all breaks in the breakroom, etc., may no longer be wise, since it might not satisfy the “at liberty to use the meal period for whatever purpose he or she desires” requirement. California employers might also want to think about whether they should direct supervisors and managers to simply stay out of the breakroom (unless they are on breaks themselves), since a rather glaring hole in this holding is the possibility that employees might allege that their bosses coerced or pressured them into working, and those allegations become more feasible the more often supervisors visit the breakroom.  The court even mentioned this possibility by stating that “an employer may not undermine a formal policy of providing meal breaks by pressuring employees to perform their duties in ways that omit breaks.”

In its opinion, the Brinker court also addressed various issues regarding class certification, how to calculate when rest and meal breaks must be given, etc., but the issue above was what everyone was waiting to see resolved.

*Jason Rossiter practices in all areas of labor and employment law and has extensive experience handling employee break issues. He is licensed to practice law in California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. For more information about this and other changes to California law, contact Zashin & Rich at (216) 696-4441.