The California Supreme Court in Mendoza v. Nordstrom, recently provided long-awaited clarification to California employers about how to interpret California’s day-of-rest laws. Mendoza involved a group of former nonexempt Nordstrom employees who alleged in a Private Attorneys General Act action that Nordstrom had failed to provide them guaranteed days of rest. After losing a trial in federal court, the employees appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit, in turn, filed an order requesting that the California Supreme Court resolve “unsettled questions of California law” about the day-of-rest laws, which are found in Labor Code §§550-558.1.
The Labor Code provides two provisions that guarantee a day of rest to nonexempt California employees. Section 551 states, “Every person employed in any occupation of labor is entitled to one day’s rest therefrom in seven.” Section 552 goes on to provide, “No employer of labor shall cause his employees to work more than six days in seven.” The first question posed to the California Supreme Court was how to calculate the seven-day period referred to in those two sections. The employees took the position that the statutes guaranteed a day of rest on a rolling basis, for any seven consecutive days, but the court disagreed. Rather, the court held that there is a day of rest guaranteed for each workweek, and even though that could result in an employee working more than six consecutive days of work across more than one workweek, there is no per se prohibition on that result. The court went on to explain that employers and employees had flexibility in scheduling, and all the law requires is that on balance, employees average no less than one day’s rest for every seven days’ worked over the course of every calendar month. This can be achieved by providing an employee who works every day of a given week multiple days of rest in another week, shortly before or after the week in which every day is worked.
