Labor & Employment Law Blog

On July 18, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that Taco Bell had violated California’s meal period and overtime requirements by requiring employees who purchased discounted meals to stay on the premises during their meal period.  The Court held that Taco Bell did not violate California law and affirmed an order granting summary judgment in favor of Taco Bell in a proposed class action suit titled Rodriquez v. Taco Bell Corp. (9th Cir. Case No. 16-15465).

On July 5, 2018, U.S. District Judge John Mendez of the Eastern District of California struck down two provisions of AB 450 (United States v. California (No. 218-cv-490-JAM-KJN)).  Judge Mendez held that the U.S. government is likely to succeed on the merits in challenging parts of AB 450 that barred employers from voluntarily consenting to federal enforcement agents’ access to nonpublic areas of business, and barred employers from voluntarily allowing immigration agents access to employee records.  Further, Judge Mendez struck down the provision prohibiting employers from re-verifying a worker’s employment status, but upheld one part of AB 450, requiring that employers post notice of any inspections of employment eligibility documents.

On June 25, 2018, a California court of appeal offered employers who use rounding systems to calculate employee payroll a reassuring ruling, approving a policy that rounded employee’s time to the nearest quarter hour. In AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v Superior Court (2018) No. B285655, the issue arose out of AHMC Healthcare’s use of a payroll system that automatically rounded employee hours up or down to the nearest quarter hour prior to calculating wages and issuing paychecks (instead of using the employee’s exact check-in and check-out times). Emilio Letona and Jacquelyn Abeyta, both employees of AHMC Healthcare, brought a class-action suit against AHMC Healthcare, Inc. for failure to pay wages and failure to furnish timely and accurate wage statements. The plaintiffs claimed this rounding system was in direct violation of the Labor Code, and presented evidence of time records from San Gabriel Valley Medical Center L.P. (where Letona was employed) and AHMC Anaheim Regional Medical Center L.P. (where Abeyta was employed).