For the third time this year, the California Supreme Court has interpreted the state’s wage and hour laws to be more protective than the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), further increasing the compliance challenges for California employers.
In this case, involving only a little over $100 in back pay for the named plaintiff (and, thus far, six years of litigation), the state’s supreme court was asked by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals whether the FLSA’s “de minimis doctrine” applies to claims of unpaid wages under the California Labor Code. Under the de minimis doctrine, insubstantial and insignificant periods of time do not have to be included as compensable time in the workweek.
The decision by the state’s high court in Troester v. Starbucks Corp., No. S234269 (Cal. S. Ct. July 26, 2018), acknowledges that California’s Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) has recognized the de minimis doctrine in multiple published opinions, but rejects this interpretation because the court found no evidence that the California legislature intended to incorporate the federal rule, which the court viewed as less protective than state law.
Although the court arguably left undecided whether some California-specific form of the doctrine might apply in a future case, it found no such doctrine applicable to the facts of this case and expressed several policy arguments that undermine use of the doctrine in wage and hour cases.
A copy of the court’s decision is available here.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.