![]() ![]() ![]() Specifically, the court determined that time records showing noncompliant meal periods (missed, delayed, or short) raise a rebuttable presumption of meal period violations at summary judgment, borrowing from a concurring opinion in the 2012 Brinker decision. If the time records show a 25-minute break, how does a court decide if that break was shortened at the employer’s behest, or by the employee’s personal choice? The supreme court addressed that question by declaring that a rebuttable presumption of liability arises. Superior Court decision, the supreme court held that an “employer is not obligated to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed.” The court held that an employer satisfies its obligation to provide a meal period “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.” But in litigation, this can become a problem of proof. Rebuttable Presumption of Liability Based on Meal Period Records The California Labor Code “requir premium pay for any violation, no matter how minor.” The court concluded that “ premium pay scheme that discourages employers from infringing on meal periods by even a few minutes cannot be reconciled with a policy that counts those minutes as negligible rounding errors.” As a result, the court concluded the rounding policy “ not always trigger premium pay when such pay is owed.” Similarly, a lunch that actually began after the end of the fifth hour of work could be rounded to start before the fifth hour ended-and no meal period premium would have been paid. to 12:30 p.m.” AMN considered the rounded meal period compliant and the employee did not receive a meal period premium-even though the actual meal period was substantially less than 30 minutes. to 12:25 p.m.” would have been rounded to “a 30-minute lunch from 12:00 p.m. Under AMN’s rounding policy, “a 21-minute lunch from 12:04 p.m. The court illustrated the issue with an example showing how rounding could obscure a meal period violation. “The regulatory scheme that encompasses the meal period provisions is concerned with small amounts of time.” 4-‘not less than 30 minutes’ and ‘five hours per day’ or ‘ten hours per day’-is at odds with the imprecise calculations that rounding involves,” the court stated. “The precision of the time requirements set out in Labor Code section 512 and Wage Order No. The supreme court reasoned that the timing of meal periods are precise obligations, designed to ensure the welfare of workers. The California supreme court held that rounding may not be applied to meal periods. Is that practice allowed for clocking out and in from meal breaks? No. Many employers will round time punches to the nearest five minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Rounding time punches has historically been a common timekeeping practice. The court’s opinion also raised, but did not resolve, questions regarding meal period compliance that will likely challenge employers and litigants for years. AMN Services, LLC, resolving two questions regarding California meal periods. Culminating seven years of litigation involving one California employer, on February 25, 2021, the Supreme Court of California issued its unanimous opinion in Donohue v. ![]() Taking a meal break in California is no simple affair.
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