KENNEDY DONOHUE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. AMN SERVICES, LLC, Defendant and Respondent., 11 Cal. 5th 58

Summary

HOLDINGS: [1]-In the meal period context under Lab. Code, §§ 512, 226.7, employers cannot round time punches because the meal period provisions are designed to prevent even minor infringements on meal period requirements, and rounding is incompatible with that objective; [2]-Records showing noncompliant meal periods raise a rebuttable presumption of meal period violations, including at the summary judgment stage; [3]-An employer improperly used rounded time punches to track potentially noncompliant meal periods, even though the employer sometimes paid employees for a few extra minutes that they did not work and sometimes did not pay them for a few minutes that they did work, because that argument did not account for the underpayment of premium pay. The policy never provided premium pay when it was not owed, but sometimes failed to trigger premium pay when it was owed.