Wage & Hour

Lab. Code 1194(a) provides that in a suit for unpaid minimum wages, an employee is entitled to recover the unpaid wages as well as reasonable attorney fees and costs.  This provision conflicts with CCP 1033(a) which grants trial courts discretion to deny costs when the plaintiff recovers less than the maximum awardable in a limited jurisdiction case.  This decision determines… Read More

This decision holds that under Wage Order 16: (1) time spent awaiting and undergoing an employer-mandated exit security procedure that includes the employer’s visual inspection of the employee’s personal vehicle at a security gate is compensable hours worked because it is an employer-mandated task for the employer's benefit.  (2) Time spent traveling between the security gate and the employee parking… Read More

After successfully moving to compel arbitration of Suarez's wage-and-hour claim, the defendant employer failed to pay its share of the initial arbitration fee.  This decision grants the employee's petition to vacate the order denying his motion to withdraw the dispute from arbitration on the ground that non-payment of the fee within 30 days of its due date was a breach… Read More

Labor Code section 2802 requiring employers to reimburse employees for work-related expenses does not apply to government agency employers.  The Labor Code imposed duty conflicts with the sovereign discretion that the Board of Trustees is granted under the Education Code to set its own equipment reimbursement policies. Read More

Under Wage Order No. 5, a hospital may obtain an affirmative defense to a claim for overtime pay by securing a 2/3ds affirmative vote of the workers in the unit to an alternative work schedule so long as the employer first makes full disclosure of the effects that the alternative work schedule will have and fulfills various other procedural requirements. … Read More

Anaheim's living wage ordinance applies to any business that receives a city subsidy--that is, a right to receive a rebate of any city tax.  This decision holds that defendant is such a business because it had a right to receive a rebate of certain city taxes if they exceeded the amount needed to repay bonds issued to revitalize the Anaheim… Read More

Lab. Code 2802 requires an employer to reimburse employees for expenses they incurred in working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.  It does not matter that the state's emergency stay-at-home caused the employees to work from home rather than in an office.  Lab. Code 2802 contains no causation requirement or excuse.  Rather the section requires an employer to reimburse employees… Read More

Former nanny sued parent-employers on four wage-and-hour claims and also for defamation based on statements parents made to a friend the parents involved in an attempt to obtain a release of claims by the nanny in exchange for a severance package.  Held, the statements were not protected speech under the Anti-SLAPP statute since litigation was not then threatened or seriously… Read More

Adjunct professors sued USF for failing to give them wage statements that showed hours worked and hourly wage.  After judgment was entered in Gola's favor, the Legislature enacted Lab. Code 515.7 which allows nonprofit universities to avoid certain wage statement requirements if the adjunct professors' wages meet certain criteria.  This decision holds that section 515.7 does not operate retroactively to… Read More

Proposition 22 (governing the independent contractor status of gig workers)  is unconstitutional insofar as it sought to define what would be an amendment to its provisions.  That provision violated the judiciary's and the legislature's separate powers.  However, those provisions were severable, leaving the rest of the proposition intact. Read More

On remand from the Supreme Court, this Court of Appeal decision affirms the trial court's decision not to award statutory penalties under either Lab. Code 203 (failure to pay wages on termination of employment) or 226 (wage statements) for the employer's failure to pay and include in the wage statement, premium pay for missed meal breaks.  Under the statutes, the… Read More

Under the FLSA, an employer need not pay overtime pay to employees who work in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity.  Dept. of Labor regulations impose three tests for the exemption's applicability, one of which is that the employee must be paid on a "salary basis."  This decision holds that the regulation defining "salary basis" requires that the… Read More

To appeal from a Labor Commissioner award of wages to an employee, the employer must post a bond in the amount the Labor Commissioner awarded.  This decision holds that a car wash company cannot substitute its $150,000 car wash bond for the bond required by section 98.2.  Though for a similar purpose of guaranteeing payment of wages to car wash… Read More

In a case governed by federal law, the arbitrator not the court decides whether the defendant has waived arbitration at least by acts other than participation in litigation.  But under California law, the court decides issues of waiver.  (CCP 1281.2(a).)  In this case, despite a choice of FAA law in the arbitration clause, California law governed this issue because plaintiffs'… Read More

The employer properly computed overtime pay in accordance for pay periods in which it paid plaintiff an hourly wage and a percentage bonus on sales.  The employer used the method prescribed for FSLA overtime (29 CFR 778.210), applying instead the DLSE's Enforcement Manual method (section 49.2.4) would result in an improper overtime on overtime since the bonus already was computed… Read More

Under Lab. Code 204(d), wages must be paid to workers paid on a weekly basis within 7 calendar days after the end of the payroll period.  This decision holds that CCP 12a applies so as to extend the 7-day deadline for payment to the next business day if the deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday. Read More

An employee who engages in sales activities for the employer in a fixed location at which the employer exercises control and supervision over the employee, by requiring the employee to clock in and out and other measures is not subject to the outside salesman exemption to Labor Code wage and hour provisions.  The exemption was intended to shield employers from… Read More

Following Johnson v. Arvin-Edison Water Storage Dist. (2009) 174 Cal.App.4th 729, this decision holds that Labor Code wage and hour provisions do not apply to governmental entities.  Here, the San Diego Convention Center Corp. was a governmental agrency established by the City of San Diego to manage its convention center.  Accordingly, the plaintiff ex-employee could not prevail on meal and… Read More

Lab. Code 2778 codifies the ABC test of employment for wage and hour purposes for most California worders, but expressly exempts real estate licenses, stating that their status is determined under Bus. & Prof. Code 10032 which in turn incorporates the test stated in Unemployment Ins. Code 650 and 13004.1.  Under that test, a real estate agent is an independent… Read More

This decision holds that at least when the employer can and does capture time worked to the exact minute, it cannot justify not paying an employee for every minute worked by relying on a facially neutral policy of rounding time to the nearest 15 minutes.  California law requires payment of employees for all time worked, and disallows any de minimus… Read More