News Notes: Employees Win Big Damages for Meal Period Violations

If employees are free to do what they wish during a lunch or other meal break, the general rule is you don’t have to pay them for that time. But what if they’re required to remain on company premises? In two recent cases, employees who weren’t permitted to leave during meal periods have won big damages. The first case involved 1,500 employees of Southern New England Telephone Co., who had to stay at their outdoor work sites during lunch breaks because the company didn’t want valuable equipment left unattended. Even though the employees performed no work, a federal appeals court ruled the restrictions made the lunch periods compensable under federal law and ordered the phone company to pay $1.45 million in damages. In the second case, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $325,192 in back wages to more than 900 night workers who weren’t permitted to leave the stores during meal breaks. As these cases demonstrate, you can require employees to remain at the workplace during meal periods for security or other logistical reasons, but because the workers remain under your control they are entitled to pay even if they don’t actually work.