Meal & Rest Periods

On July 24, 2008, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal issued its Opinion in the case of Brinker Restaurant Corporation, et al., v. The Superior Court of San Diego County. Brinker Restaurant Corporation owned and operated a large number of Chili’s Grill & Bar and Macaroni Grill restaurants in California. A number of former employees sought to file a class action lawsuit against Brinker based on claims that the employees did not receive meal and rest periods and that their employer forced them to work off the clock and shaved time off of their time records to avoid liability for meal and rest periods. The Superior Court initially granted the class certification, but the employer appealed the case directly to the California Supreme Court, which in turn sent it to the 4th District Court of Appeals for a ruling on the issues at hand.

The Court of Appeal made the following ruling:

“[We] conclude that (1) while employers cannot impede, discourage or dissuade employees from taking rest periods, they need only provide, not ensure, rest periods are taken; (2) employers need only authorize and permit rest periods every four hours or major fraction thereof and they need not, where impracticable, be in the middle of each work period; (3) employers are not required to provide a meal period for every five consecutive hours worked; (4) while employers cannot impede, discourage or dissuade employees from taking meal periods, they need only provide them and not ensure they are taken; and (5) while employers cannot coerce, require or compel employees to work off the clock, they can only be held liable for employees working off the clock if they knew or should have known they were doing so.”

In addition, the court ruled that in this particular case, a class action was not proper because the individuality of the claims would make it impractical to proceed in the class action format. Although the court did not go so far as to rule that a class action complaint could never be brought on claims for meal and rest periods, the basis for the decision in this particular case made it clear that class actions would be very unlikely for these types of wage claims. In its decision on the class certification issues, the court cited a decision from last year in the case of Brown v. United Parcel Service from the Central District of California. Limiting the use of the class action format in wage claims has the affect of limiting the number of frivolous claims that can be maintained under threat of ponderous attorneys’ fees awards.

The court’s decision on the meal periods echoed the 2007 decision in the case of White v. Starbucks, which also held that employers are not required to ensure or force their employees to take meal periods, but are merely required to provide and permit their employees to take meal periods. This court also held that meal and break periods need not necessarily be taken at the mid-point of the shift, but only where it is practicable to take those breaks near the mid-point of the shifts. This is an important ruling for businesses such as restaurants that oftentimes have their busiest moments during the mid-point of their employees shifts. The court held that there was nothing illegal about the restaurants’ practice of providing meal periods early in the shift so that employees did not have to stop working at a time that would cost them greater tips due to the number of patrons in the restaurant near the mid-point of the shift.

In essence the decision by the court in this case reiterated the decision in White v. Starbucks and confirmed the advice we have been giving to our members that meal and rest periods need to be made available to employees working the requisite number of hours in a day, but that employers are not required to ensure that the employees actually take those breaks.

Dave Leporiere
LAW OFFICES OF DAVID A LEPORIERE
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Gold River, California 95670
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