Yesterday’s Advisor presented the facts of a wage and hour lawsuit that could have been prevented with proper supervisor training. Today we look at the court’s decision—and the training takeaways for employers seeking to minimize their legal risk.
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(See yesterday’s Advisor for more background on the case.)
What the Court Said
The appeals court majority affirmed the district court’s decision, joining the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th circuit courts in adopting the predominant benefit test.
In general, courts have avoided a literal reading of a Department of Labor regulation providing that during a “bona fide meal period” an employee “must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals. The employee is not relieved if he is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating. For example, an office employee who is required to eat at his desk or a factory worker who is required to be at his machine is working while eating.”
Instead, courts have opted to assess all of the circumstances of a case when determining who benefits from the meal period. “Most courts derive this approach from Supreme Court precedent holding that ‘[w]hether time is spent predominantly for the employer’s benefit or for the employee’s is a question dependent upon all the circumstances of the case.’”
Calling the predominant benefit test a “fact-intensive inquiry,” the appeals court noted that some courts give more weight to certain factors than others. For example, while some give particular importance to whether the employee is free to leave the premises, others emphasize the number of interruptions the employee faces.
Even though the corrections officers in this case were subjected to several restrictions during their meal period, the appeals court said that “those restrictions did not predominantly benefit the employer.” The court noted that the corrections officers “could request authorization to leave the prison for their meal period and could eat lunch away from their desks” and that they were paid for 45 minutes of their meal period.
Although the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) does not directly address whether employees must be paid for the 15-minute portion of the meal break, the court said the CBA assumes that an officer generally is not working during a meal period because corrections officers must be paid “mandatory overtime pay if the mealtime is interrupted by work.”
The appeals court concluded that the Butler County Prison corrections officers received the predominant benefit of the 15 minutes and, as a result, are not entitled to overtime pay for that portion of their meal period. Babcock v. Butler County (No. 14-1467) (U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Cir., 11/24/15)
The Training Takeaway
Even though Butler County did not have to pay the corrections officers for the 15-minute portion of their meal break, this case illustrates the importance of training supervisors on federal and state wage and hour laws, as well as an organization’s policy on whether employees are entitled to paid or unpaid meal breaks.
Training should give supervisors clear parameters about whether they are permitted to ask employees to perform work during an unpaid break and provide clear instructions to contact HR with any related questions.