California Employment Laws are generally employee friendly. A prime example of this is the 2007 case Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. , where the California Supreme Court set forth the general principle that "statutes governing conditions of employment are to be construed broadly in favor of protecting employees" and applied that standard to missed meal and rest breaks .

Labor Code section 226.7 requires employers to pay an employee an additional hour of pay for a missed meal or rest break . This additional pay was determined by the Court to be "wages" or "premium pay" rather than a "penalty." The simple fact that the extra pay was not called a "penalty" was not enough to sway the Court in their analysis. Instead, what is important is whether the monetary recovery provided for in Labor Code section 226.7 is proportionate to the injury.

The Labor Code provides that if an employee receives an extra hour of pay for a missed or interrupted ten (10) minute break or thirty (30) minute meal period. Thus, the question is why is an employee entitled to a full hour of pay for the 10 or 30 minute missed break. In light of construing statutes in favor of employees, the California Supreme Court held that Labor Code section 226.7 is proportional to the injury because it compensates for both economic and non-economic damages . This is similar to the premium pay for overtime.

The classification of the extra hour of pay as "wages" or "premium pay" is significant because a claim for the payment of wages is subject to a three year statute of limitation. Following the Murphy case, a virtual flood of meal period cases have been filed in California.

Contact the Law Offices of Amanda Hill at (310) 860-7445 for information regarding your employment law matters.

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