Employers finally get a break when it comes to meal breaks

At first glance, California’s law regarding meal and rest breaks seems fairly simple. Employees who work more than five hours are entitled to a meal break of 30 minutes or more. Employers must also provide rest breaks of at least ten minutes for each four hours worked by an employee. Yet these deceptively simple rules have been anything but in the hands of the courts.

In 2007, in a landmark decision, the California Supreme Court held that missed breaks are a form of “wages,” and not a “penalty” meaning that employees can go back three years to recover missed breaks.

Last month, the Fourth District Court of Appeals, in the case of Brinker Restaurant Corporation v. Superior Court of San Diego, handed down another important decision relating to meal breaks. Prior to this ruling, meal breaks and rest breaks were treated differently in one very key aspect: it was the employer’s duty to allow employees to take rest breaks, and to ensure that employees take meal breaks. Not so anymore.

The Court of Appeals ruled that meal breaks “need only be available, not ensured.” The court’s reasoning was practical in nature:

“[P]ublic policy does not support the notion that meal breaks must be ensured. If this were the case, employers would be forced to police their employees and force them to take meal breaks. With thousands of employees working multiple shifts, this would be an impossible task. If they were unable to do so, employers would have to pay an extra hour of pay any time an employee voluntarily chose not to take a meal period, or to take a shortened one."

Governor Schwarzenegger expressed his pleasure with the ruling as well: "The confusing and conflicting interpretations of the meal and rest period requirements have harmed both employees and employers. Today's decision promotes the public interest by providing employers, employees, the courts and the labor commissioner the clarity and precedent needed to apply meal and rest period requirements consistently.”

The ruling constitutes a major victory for employers, a rarity in California’s largely pro-employee law system. Yet employers are not completely off the hook when it comes to meal breaks. The ruling forbids employers from impeding, discouraging or dissuading employees from taking meal breaks. This means that employers must actually provide a work environment where an employee is free to take meal breaks that are real breaks, i.e. where they are relieved of all duty and free to leave the premises. A “meal break” that consists of an employee being required to answer phones or plow through a stack of paperwork while eating at their desk is insufficient.