A fraction-of-a-cent mistake ran for eight years – and the penalty wages reached $5.3 million
A fraction-of-a-cent-per-hour payroll mistake went unchecked for eight years at Jack in the Box – and triggered a multimillion-dollar class action.
On April 20, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed down an amended opinion that should give every HR team in the country a reason to audit their payroll systems this week. The three-judge panel reversed and remanded large portions of the case, sending the fast-food chain back to trial on claims involving overdeducted wages, unpaid meal breaks, and mandatory shoe purchases.
The case was brought by five former employees on behalf of a class of more than 5,100 workers at Jack in the Box restaurants in Oregon. The dispute traces back to 2003, when the company was using its Lawson payroll software to deduct 1.8 cents per hour from each employee's paycheck for the Oregon Workers' Benefit Fund, a state program funded by equal contributions from employers and employees. That rate was correct at the time. But over the following years, Oregon lowered the total assessment. Jack in the Box updated what it paid the state but never changed the employee deduction rate in its payroll system. From 2004 through 2011, employees overpaid – by as little as 0.1 cents and at most 0.4 cents per hour. The company discovered the error in February 2012. By then, it had already sold all its Oregon locations and had no employees left in the...
We respect your privacy Telewizja Polska S.A. w likwidacji processes your personal data collected when you visit individual websites on the tvp.pl Portal (hereinafter referred to as the Portal), i...