CA Supreme Court rules on whether meal break premium is penalty or wage

If you don’t give an employee required rest breaks or meal breaks, you must provide additional pay for each day with a missed break. But is that payment also a wage that needs to be reported on a pay stub and paid at termination, with each failure to do so carrying additional penalties? Or are the penalties not subject to those two statutory fines? Those questions—and more—were recently answered by the California Supreme Court.

Prison guards can’t get a break

Spectrum Security Services, Inc., provides secure custodial services to federal agencies. The company transports and guards prisoners and detainees who require outside medical attention or have other appointments outside custodial facilities. Gustavo Naranjo was a guard for Spectrum who was suspended and later fired after leaving his post to take a meal break, in violation of a company policy that required custodial employees to remain on-duty during all meal breaks.

Naranjo filed a class action on behalf of Spectrum employees alleging the company had violated state meal break requirements and seeking an additional hour of pay—commonly referred to as “premium pay”—for each day Spectrum failed to provide employees a legally compliant meal break.

Three years of meal break violations