Posts belonging to Category Caselaw Developments

The essence of today’s long-awaited Brinker decision (available here) is that an employer satisfies its obligations under California’s meal break laws “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, and does not impede or discourage them from doing so.”  Brinker at 36.  The Court thus adopted a moderate approach: seeing that employees are permitted to take their breaks, while also accounting for scheduling flexibility and taking a realistic view of the demands of the modern workplace. 

While California requires employers to “provide” employees who work five hours or more with a 30-minute off-duty unpaid meal period, the practical application of this provision has been frequently contested in state and federal courts in recent years.  Brinker finally defines employers’ obligation to “provide” and stops short of requiring that the employer “ensure” employees take their breaks.  Brinker at 36.  In a seemingly pragmatic nod to worker autonomy, the Court left the decision of whether or not to take a break entirely to the employee. 

As to the “rolling five-hour” issue, the Court struck a similarly practical note, holding that California’s meal period requirement “imposes no meal timing requirements beyond those in [Labor Code] section 512” and “an employer’s obligation is to provide a first meal period after no more than five hours of work and a second meal period after no more than 10 hours of work.”  Brinker at 50.

The California Supreme Court summarized its ruling as follows:

In light of the substantial evidence submitted by plaintiffs of defendants’ uniform policy, we conclude the trial court properly certified a rest break   subclass. On the question of meal break subclass certification, we remand to the trial court for reconsideration. With respect to the third contested subclass, covering allegations that employees were required to work “off-the-clock,” no evidence of common policies or means of proof was supplied, and the trial court therefore erred in certifying a subclass. Accordingly, because the Court of Appeal rejected certification of all three subclasses, we will affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

Brinker at 2.

The ruling, a mixed result for the plaintiffs, will be covered in further posts throughout the week. See Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Super. Ct., No. S166350, available here.

After much anticipation, the California Supreme Court has issued a Notice of Forthcoming Filing, indicating that “[o]pinion(s) in the above case(s) will be filed on: Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 10:00 a.m.”  The referenced case is Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Super. Ct., No. S166350. The Notice of Forthcoming Filing is available here.  The Notice provides a modest summary: “This case presents issues concerning the proper interpretation of California’s statutes and regulations governing an employer’s duty to provide meal and rest breaks to hourly workers.”  Indeed, Brinker is likely to have considerable implications for both the certification of meal break claims and exactly what is required of employers, in particular whether employers must affirmatively ensure that employees take meal breaks or whether employers’ obligation is merely to make meal breaks available.

We will cover the decision as soon as it is issued and follow up with more in-depth coverage as other response and analysis appears.

Nearly one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 27, 2011 decision in Concepcion v. AT&T Mobility, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011), state and federal courts alike have issued rulings that disprove widespread predictions that Concepcion would sound the death knell for class actions by referring the bulk of them to arbitration.  In Brown v. Ralphs, 197 Cal. App. 4th 489 (2011), California’s Court of Appeal categorically excluded actions brought pursuant to PAGA (the Private Attorneys General Act) from Concepcion’s ambit, while the Ninth Circuit recently upheld the continuing vitality of the unconscionability doctrine in Kilgore v. KeyBank, No. 3:08-cv-02958 (9th Cir. Mar. 7, 2012) and Coneff v. AT&T Corp., No. 2:06-cv-00944 (9th Cir. Mar. 16, 2012).

 Rulings limiting Concepcion have by no means been confined to California.  For instance, the influential Second Circuit recently held that enforcement of a class action ban “would strip the plaintiffs of rights accorded them by statute.”  Italian Colors Rest. v. Am. Express Travel Related Servs. Co., 667 F.3d 204, 219 (2nd Cir. 2012).  The panel remanded the at-issue action to the district court with instructions to deny the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.  Id. at 219-220.  In Massachusetts, a state court found that Concepcion did not overturn a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that invalidated bans on class actions.  Feeney v. Dell, 28 Mass. L. Rptr. 652 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2011).  And in North Carolina, a class action ban was held unenforceable where the underlying claims could not be effectively remedied “if [prospective class members] are required to proceed on an individual rather than class basis.”  Torrence v. Nationwide Budget Finance, No. 05-CVS-0047, 2012 WL 335947 (N.C. Super. Ct. Jan. 25, 2012).  Federal district courts issued similarly framed Concepcion interpretations.  See, e.g., Raniere v. Citigroup, No. 11-civ-2448, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135393 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 22, 2011) (denying employer’s motion to compel individual arbitration); Barkwell v. Sprint Communications Co., No. 4:09-CV-56, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3625 (M.D. Ga. Jan. 12, 2012) (denying motion to compel individual arbitration of breach of contract claims).

In retrospect, the more measured predictions about Concepcion’s impact have proven the most prescient.  As is so often the case in matters of complex, impact litigation, Concepcion appears to be neither the “end of class actions” nor “much ado about nothing.”  Rather, Concepcion has triggered a common law articulation that is far more evolutionary than revolutionary.