For more than 70 years, workers seeking unpaid wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act have been thwarted by the de minimis doctrine—a rule that employers need not pay workers for small amounts of time that are administratively difficult to measure and record because “the law does not concern itself with trifles.”  On July 26, the California Supreme Court rejected application of this doctrine to wage-and-hour claims under the California Labor Code in Troester v. Starbucks. This holding is a clear win for workers and labor advocates, but there is a lot to love in this opinion beyond its holding. Here are four reasons that workers and advocates in California and across the country should feel heartened by the Troester decision:

  1. The California Supreme Court outright rejected the reasoning behind the de minimis doctrine.

It is axiomatic that the worker’s rights protections in the FLSA form a floor rather than a ceiling. Courts are not bound to follow principles and trends in federal law when interpreting state law.  The California Legislature has long sought to write state laws that provide more protections for workers than the federal law. Thus, although the ultimate ruling in Troester could have been reached based on the black letter distinctions between the federal and state laws, the California Supreme Court outright rejected the U.S. Supreme Court’s Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery decision, calling the court’s reasoning “questionable.”