Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Labor & Employment Law Blogs -> California Labor & Employment Defense Blog

Labor & Employment Law

: California Labor & Employment Defense Blog

Perspectives on Brinker: What Must a California Employer Do to Make Meal and Rest Breaks "Available" to Their Employees?

In Brinker Restaurant Co. v. Superior Court, ___ Cal.App 4th ___ (2008), the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that “meal periods need only be made available, not ensured.” Thus employers are not strictly liable for missed meal and rest breaks when an employee “merely show[s] that he did not take them regardless of the reason."

So what then, according to Brinker, must an employer do to make a meal or rest break “available”? Or, stated somewhat differently, what are the reasons for an employee missing a break that will trigger a penalty? The following answers seem to emerge from the Brinker decision, and especially from that court’s efforts to factually distinguish the Cicairos and Perez cases which had previously found employer liability for failure to provide breaks.

• To begin with, employers cannot actively “impede, discourage or dissuade employees from taking meal periods.”
• Moreover, "an employer must do something affirmative to provide a meal period." (Brinker, discussing Perez, 2007 WL 1848037 at *7)”
• Thus, an employer’s “obligation to provide [employees] with an adequate meal period [is] not satisfied merely by assuming that the meal periods were taken." (Brinker, quoting Cicairos, 133 Cal.App.4th at p. 962.)
• For example, an employer’s “lack of a policy for meal breaks" combined with an on-call policy that requires employers to be constantly available to report to work, is not sufficient to discharge its affirmative duty. (Brinker, discussing Perez, supra, at *7).
• Also, failing to record meal periods, while “pressuring” employees to adhere to scheduling policies that make it “harder” to take meal breaks is not sufficient. (Brinker, discussing Cicairos, supra, 133 Cal.App.4th at p. 962.)
• Likewise, knowingly permitting employees to work through meal breaks, while not “tak[ing] steps to address the situation,” and implementing “management policies” that make it “harder” to take a break , may “effectively deprive[]” employees of their breaks. (Brinker, discussing Cicairos).

The Brinker case is very likely headed for the California Supreme Court. However, it clearly points to the inevitable direction in which the meal period “policing” rule will evolve. The public policy implications of a strict liability enforcement regime (such as having to fire employees for not complying with employer break policies) will rule out any strict liability standard. Instead, “good employers” who make reasonable efforts to create and enforce internal break polices will not be subject to class-wide liability for failing to achieve an impossible 100% compliance rate. On the other hand, “bad employers” who either have no break policy or who merely go through the motions of compliance will not be allowed to escape liability by claiming their employees are “voluntarily” working through breaks.

Mapping the contours of the borderline between these two categories of employers will no doubt generate years of massive, hard fought litigation.

Full post as published by California Labor & Employment Defense Blog on July 25, 2008 (boomark / email).