Under California law, employers generally must provide employees working more than five hours in a day with a meal period. These meal periods must be at least 30 minutes, duty-free, and uninterrupted. In addition, for a long time, California courts and the Labor Commissioner have recognized that employees should be free to leave the employer’s premises during a meal period. In a recent case, however, the employer tried to argue against such a rule. The California Court on Appeal’s decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. should put any doubt on this subject to rest, with employers liable for premium pay under Labor Code section 226.7(c) for not allowing employees to leave during meal periods.
The Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders do not have any express requirement that employees be free to leave the employer’s premises during a meal period. Instead, the courts and Labor Commissioner have read California’s meal period provisions to include such a requirement.
The California Supreme Court’s decision in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.4th 1004 (2012), is best known for holding that the requirement that employers provide meal periods means that an employee must make them available as required – not that employers ensure that an employee, in fact, takes a meal period once the employer provides the opportunity. Brinker also addressed particular requirements for a bona fide meal...
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