BREAKING NEWS – Two Key Takeaways from the CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT CASE ON MEAL PERIODS, Donohue v. AMN Services LLC.
Recently, the California Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking decision related to meal periods that every employer needs to understand. There are two important takeaways, each discussed below.
Employers Cannot Round Meal Periods
In Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, the Supreme Court held that, “employers cannot engage in the practice of rounding time punches — that is, adjusting the hours that an employee has actually worked to the nearest preset time increment — in the meal period context. The meal period provisions are designed to prevent even minor infringements on meal period requirements, and rounding is incompatible with that objective.” Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, No. S253677 (Cal., Feb. 25, 2021) at *1.
Medina McKelvey has been advising employers for years that, although rounding is not automatically unlawful, it is not a best practice and rounding meal periods (as opposed to shift start and end times) is never acceptable. While the Donohue case didn’t change our interpretation of the law and best practices, it is now officially California Supreme Court law, which means it is the unequivocal law of this state. Thus, any employers who are still rounding meal periods must stop the practice immediately or the legal consequences could be severe. If for some reason you have this practice please contact us so that we can discuss how best to transition away from this practice as soon as possible.
This case is just another reminder of the hostility California courts show towards rounding. Rounding shift start times and end times is technically not illegal, as long as over the course of time the rounding doesn’t work to the disadvantage of the employees. Nevertheless, rounding is (1) incredibly disfavored, (2) a guaranteed target for a lawsuit, and (3) almost impossible to do in a compliant way in California’s hostile environment.
Employers Have to Prove That Time Records Showing Noncompliant Meal Periods Are Not Violations and Pay Premiums If They Are Noncompliant
The second key takeaway from this case is actually more harmful and dangerous to employers than the first. In the Donohue case, the California Supreme Court also held that “time records showing noncompliant meal periods raise a rebuttable presumption of meal period violations, including at the summary judgment stage.” This is a dangerous argument that lawyers representing employees have been making for years. The argument is that if an employee’s time records show a missed meal period, a late meal period (after the first five hours), or a short meal period (FEWER than 30 minutes), then this is a presumed violation and the burden shifts to the employer to show that the reason the meal period was missed, late, or short was due to the employee and not the employer. Unfortunately, this dangerous plaintiff argument just became California law.
Medina McKelvey and other employer advocates have argued for years that just because employer time records show a missed, late, or short meal period, doesn’t mean we should assume this was the fault of the employer. Instead, we have argued that it is the plaintiff/employee’s burden to prove that the potential violation shown on the time card was caused by an employer’s deficient practice or bad policy. The Donohue case turns this around and puts the burden on employers to prove that the potential violation was not an actual violation. In other words, any time there is a missed, late, or short meal period recorded, the employer is going to have to prove that it was the employee’s choice or fault. Proving this can be tremendously difficult, especially in a case involving hundreds of employees and thousands of recorded meal periods.
Over the course of hundreds of meal period cases we have litigated, it is fairly common for employer time records to show that anywhere from 10% to 50% of the recorded meal periods are late, short, or missed. Proving that all of these potential violations were not caused by the employer, but by the employee can be a daunting task without the right policies, training, and tools. Unfortunately, this California Supreme Court decision (along with a long string of other bad decisions for employers over the last 20 years), will increase the number of meal period lawsuits, which are already at an all-time high. In addition, the cost of settling these lawsuits is likely to increase, unless the employer has the evidence it needs to prove the rebuttable presumption.
We cannot stress enough the importance of meal period compliance going forward in light of this decision, along with a growing body of case law that places a high burden on employers with respect to meal period compliance.
Medina McKelvey Webinar
To ensure you are in full compliance with the new meal and rest break laws, as well as other current topics, including COVID-19 compliance, timekeeping practices, business expense reimbursement, and harassment, discrimination and retaliation, Medina McKelvey is offering a free 60 minute webinar on March 10, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. and March 16, 2021 at 1:00 p.m.
Through this webinar and other resources, we’ll provide you with further updates that provide practical tools and suggestions on the following ways you can help protect your company from the next wave of meal period lawsuits including:
Written Meal Period Policy Improvement and Communication.
Timekeeping Tools and Tips for Meal Period Compliance.
Training and Documenting Solutions for Proving the Rebuttable Presumption.
Monitoring and Enforcement Mechanisms to Deal with Meal Period Noncompliance.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
