Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court

*1017 Opinion

For the better part of a century, California law has guaranteed to employees wage and hour protection, including meal and rest periods intended to ameliorate the consequences of long hours. For most of that time, only injunctive remedies were available for violations of meal and rest period guarantees. In 2000, however, both the Legislature and the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) adopted for the first time monetary remedies for the denial of meal and rest breaks. (Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 1094, 1105-1106 [ 56 Cal.Rptr.3d 880 , 155 P.3d 284 ].) These remedies engendered a wave of wage and hour class action litigation, including the instant suit in which the trial court granted class certification and the Court of Appeal then issued writ relief and ordered three subclasses decertified.

We granted review to consider issues of significance to class actions generally and to meal and rest break class actions in particular. We conclude, contrary to the Court of Appeal, that trial courts are not obligated as a matter of law to resolve threshold disputes over the elements of a plaintiffs claims, unless a particular determination is…

I join fully in today’s majority opinion, which I authored. For guidance on the issue we remand, meal period subclass certification, I write separately to emphasize what our opinion does not say. In returning the case for reconsideration, the opinion of the court does not endorse Drinker’s argument, accepted by the Court of Appeal, that the question why a meal period was missed renders meal period claims categorically uncertifiable. Nor could it, for such a per se bar would be inconsistent with the law governing reporting obligations and our historic endorsement of a variety of methods that render collective actions judicially manageable.

Employers covered by Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage order No. 5-2001 (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 11050) have an obligation both to *1053 relieve their employees for at least one meal period for shifts over five hours (id., subd. 11(A)) and to record having done so (id., subd. 7(A)(3) [“Meal periods . . . shall also be recorded.”]). If an employer’s records show no meal period for a given shift over five hours, a rebuttable presumption arises that the employee was not relieved of duty and no meal period was provided. This is consistent…

Littler Mendelson, Julie A. Dunne, Lena K. Sims, Matthew S. Dente, Richard H. Rahm and Allan G. King for the National Retail Federation, National Council of Chain Restaurants, Contain-A-Way, Inc., USA Waste of California, Inc., California Building Industry Association, California Professional Association of Specialty Contractors, Western Growers Association, American Staffing Association, California Hotel & Lodging Association and National Association of Manufacturers as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

Mayer Brown and Donald M. Falk for the American Trucking Association, Inc., and the California Trucking Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, Richard J. Simmons, Julie A. Dunne and Guylyn R. Cummins for Employers Group, California Retailers Association, California Hospital Association, California Restaurant Association, National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, National Council of Chain Restaurants and National Retail Federation as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

Fred J. Hiestand for The Civil Justice Association of California as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioners.

Robert R.…