Source: https://weinbergerlawblog.com/2019/01/14/recent-california-appellate-cases-continue-trend-of-increased-scrutiny-of-employer-pay-practices/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 06:13:21+00:00

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Employers must keep accurate records of all hours worked by employees. Failure to keep accurate records of hours worked by an employee relaxes the burden on that employee to prove he or she worked unpaid time. While the employer has the opportunity to present evidence disputing the employee’s proof, the lack of accurate records works strongly in the employee’s favor.
Employers must comply with section 226.2 of the California Labor Code, to pay piece-rate employees on an hourly basis for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time separate from any piece-rate compensation. According to the Court of Appeal, which rejected a constitutional challenge to the statute, the statutory definition of “other nonproductive time” as “time spent under the employer’s control, exclusive of rest and recovery periods, that is not directly related to the activity being compensated on a piece-rate basis,” is sufficiently clear for employer compliance.
In a case decided in December 2018 and ordered published in January 2019, Furry v. East Bay Publishing, LLC (Dec. 12, 2018) 2018 WL 6930903, the California Court of Appeal reinforced the legal principle that an employer’s failure to keep accurate and precise records of a non-exempt employee’s hours worked relaxes the employee’s burden of proving unpaid time worked. At the same time, the court affirmed a judgment denying the employee regular or premium pay for meal periods, during which the employee had worked, because the employer had provided appropriate meal periods, and the employee had failed to show that the employer was aware or reasonably should have been aware that the employee was working through the meal periods.
With regard to the legal principle governing proof of unpaid hours worked, Furry’s evidence during a four-day bench trial established that the East Bay Publishing, LLC had not kept track of the hours that Furry worked, and that Furry had performed work during evenings and on weekends at employer-sponsored events and promotions. Both a subordinate and a supervisor of Furry knew he was performing that work at times outside of normal business hours.
In these circumstances, the appellate court held that the trial court erred in completely denying to Furry relief on his overtime compensation claim, because imprecise evidence by an employee of hours worked can form a sufficient basis for damages when the employer fails to keep accurate records of the employee’s work hours. Relying on Hernandez v. Mendoza (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 721, 727, the Court explained that the failure of an employer to keep records of hours worked by an employee results in the application of a relaxed standard of proof for the employee to show the number of hours worked. Once the employee has made this showing, the burden then shifts to the employer to produce evidence of the precise amount of work performed or to negate the reasonableness of the inference of the number of hours worked that could be drawn from the evidence the employee provided.
Because Furry’s work beyond normal work hours was established by his and others’ testimony, the fact of damage was established and, consequently, his estimates of hours worked were sufficient to prove the amount of damage. The trial court erred in holding that he had failed to account for hours worked for which he was not compensated by sales commissions he received. According to the Court of Appeal, the trial court should have used the evidence of amount of commissions paid to calculate the regular rate of pay, and therefore, the overtime rate and pay, not as a basis for denying relief.
In Nisei Farmers League v. California Labor and Workforce Development Agency (Jan. 4, 2019) 2019 WL 99087, the California Court of Appeal denied a challenge to the constitutionality of a Labor Code provision effective January 1, 2016, which codified case law requiring employers with piece-rate workers to pay those workers separately on an hourly basis at a rate not less than minimum wage for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time. The employers groups that brought the case had argued that their piece-rate compensation system took account of nonproductive time to pay sufficient compensation, and challenged the constitutionality of the statute on the grounds that it (1) was void for vagueness, and (2) retroactive and therefore a violation of due process as well as a taking of property.
The appellate court held that the plaintiffs failed to allege an adequate basis to find the statute, section 226.2 of the Labor Code, unconstitutional. The Legislature had enacted section 226.2 to codify the case law in Gonzales v. Downtown LA Motors, LP (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 36, and Bluford v. Safeway Inc. (2013) 216 Cal.App.4th 8644, which had “upended” the expectations of employers who had assumed that a piece-rate system that allegedly took account of and compensated for nonproductive work periods by the way the piece-rate was set complied with California’s wage and hour laws.
In Gonzales, 215 Cal.App.4th at 40-41, the Court of Appeal had held that automobile service employees were “entitled to separate hourly compensation for time spent waiting for repair work or performing non-repair tasks directed by the employer during their work shifts”. Such compensation was required to comply with minimum wage, because the minimum wage law applies to each hour an employee works. For similar reasons, the Court in Bluford, 216 Cal.App.4th at 872, held that employers must separately pay piece-rate employees at the rate of at least minimum wage for rest periods. Both cases relied on the earlier case of Armenta v. Osmose, Inc. (2005) 135 Cal.App.4th 314, 317-24, in which the Court had held that, because California’s minimum wage law applies to each hour worked, an employer could not withhold payment of wages to an hourly employee for nonproductive time and average the wages paid over productive and non-productive time to assure that the average met minimum wage requirements.
In codifying Gonzales and Bluford in section 226.2 of the Labor Code, the California Legislature also, in section 226.2(b), created a safe harbor affirmative defense for employers that had previously failed to pay on an hourly basis for rest periods and nonproductive work by employees who were otherwise paid on a piece-rate basis. The affirmative defense was only available to those employers that, (1) by December 15, 2016, made payments of actual sums not paid (or underpaid) for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive work (or based upon an alternative payment calculation) during the period July 1, 2012 through December 31, 2015, and (2) had provided notice by July 1, 2016 to the Department of Industrial Relations of their election to make those payments.
The trial court had sustained demurrers to the employer groups’ complaint without leave to amend, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. It agreed with the trial court that the statute was not void for vagueness. Section 226.2 clarified the statutory requirements for piece-rate compensation by confirming, as of January 1, 2016, that employers were required to compensate piece-rate employees for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time separate from any piece-rate compensation. Neither the term “other nonproductive time” nor the term “actual sums due” in the statute were unconstitutionally vague.
The statutory definition of “other nonproductive time” as “time spent under the employer’s control, exclusive of rest and recovery periods, that is not directly related to the activity being compensated on a piece-rate basis,” was “reasonably clear and specific and provide[d] adequate notice of the nature of the conduct that is being described.” Moreover, section 226.2 was enacted to codify Gonzales, which, like Bluford, relied on Armenta. This context of case law lent clarity to the statute. In particular, Gonzales provided “fact-based concrete illustrations of what was meant by the term ‘other nonproductive time’”. The phrase in the definition, “not directly related” was not unconstitutionally vague: many statutes have used the phrase “directly related”. The constitution did not require the statute’s terms to contemplate all possible circumstances in which it would be applied.
The second ground for the employers’ constitutional challenge, that the statute was retroactive, also was without merit. The safe-harbor affirmative defense, which required payment by employers of pre-January 1, 2016 unpaid compensation, did not constitute an unconstitutionally retroactive statute, because the compensation for prior rest periods and nonproductive work, on which the affirmative defense was conditioned, was based upon the law that was in effect at the time, before the adoption of section 226.2—i.e., the case law of Gonzales, Bluford and Armenta. When the Gonzales and Bluford decisions were final, employers were required to separately compensate piece-rate employees for nonproductive uncompensated time and for rest periods.
The Nisei Farmers League case makes clear that employers cannot expect a judicial reprieve from the requirement of separate hourly compensation of piece-rate employees for rest periods and other nonproductive time. The workability of such a compensation system remains in question. Tracking nonproductive time will continue to be cumbersome. And the potential liability exposure for failing to track and pay for it properly may continue to shift employers away from any piece-rate compensation in California. This development could adversely impact employees who, in some circumstances, can earn higher pay on a piece-rate basis than as an hourly employee.

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