by Elizabeth J. Boca
Recently, the California Court of Appeal for the 5th Appellate District addressed the issue of on-duty meal period waivers as it relates to direct-care staff of residential homes. Read on for more background on the case.
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Background
Yvonne Palacio worked for Jan & Gail’s Care Homes as a licensed vocational nurse. Care Homes owned and operated various residential facilities for developmentally disabled individuals. At any given time, Care Homes employed approximately 50 employees, with shifts ranging from 4 to 10 hours. The facilities remained open 24 hours per day.
Care Homes required that employees who provided direct care to clients work on-duty meal periods to protect the clients from illness, injury, fire, and other emergencies. At hire, these employees were told they would be required to eat lunch with the clients, would be given a free meal (the same food provided to the residents), and would be paid for time spent working during their lunch period.
The employees were also required to sign meal period waivers stating they agreed to waive their right to uninterrupted meal periods in accordance with the facility’s standard operating procedure. However, the waivers didn’t state the employees had the right to revoke the waivers.
Palacio didn’t contend that Care Homes’ policy violated the law or that she wasn’t provided the on-duty meal periods. Indeed, she signed a meal period waiver and conceded she took her on-duty meal periods. Instead, Palacio’s sole claim was that Care Homes was obligated to inform employees that they had the right to revoke the on-duty meal period agreement at any time.
And because it didn’t, after Palacio was terminated, she filed a lawsuit alleging she didn’t receive off-duty meal periods or rest breaks. She also sought class certification on behalf of 102 current and former employees of Care Homes who were deprived of uninterrupted meal periods under Labor Code Sections 226.7 and 512 and Wage Order 5. In October 2014, the trial court denied her motion for class certification.
The case was ultimately presented to the appellate court, which was asked the following question: Was Care Homes required to inform its employees that they had the right to revoke the on-duty meal period agreement at any time?
Read on to find out.