California’s ‘day of rest’ law clarified by high court

Californians can be required to work more than six consecutive days without overtime as long as they don’t work more than six days in a single week, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The unanimous ruling was the court’s first interpretation of California’s long-standing “day of rest” law. The law was originally drafted by a state labor commission in 1919 as a wage order against requiring women and minors to work more than six days in a week, or eight hours in a day. It was rewritten by the Legislature in 1953 to require overtime pay for women and minors who work extra days or hours and was extended to all workers in 1976.

The ruling also included a partial victory for part-time workers seeking extra pay for extended work hours. It was issued at the request of a federal appeals court seeking a reading of California law in class-action suits by two former Nordstrom sales employees seeking additional pay for having to work more than six days in a row in parts of two different weeks.

The Supreme Court said the law could be interpreted in two ways. Under one interpretation, an employee scheduled to work more than six straight days over two weeks, such as Thursday of one week to Thursday of the following week, would be entitled to a rest day, or time-and-a-half pay for overtime. The other interpretation would define each week separately, such as Monday through Sunday, and require a rest day or extra pay for a seventh day of work within that week.

The justices said the second interpretation, starting a new seven-day period each week, was consistent with the wording of the current law, which provides overtime pay for “the seventh day of work in any one workweek.”

That indicates “premium pay is available not on a rolling basis, for any seventh consecutive day of work, but only for employees who must work every day of an employer’s established regularly recurring workweek,” Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said in the 7-0 ruling.

The court ruled in the employees’ favor on another disputed section of the law that exempts employers from the day-off requirement for parttime employees whose regular schedules do not “exceed 30 hours in any week or six hours in any one day thereof.”

Nordstrom and other employers argued that the exemption applied broadly to any employee who worked no more than six hours for at least one day per week. The court disagreed and said employees were entitled to a rest day or overtime pay unless they worked no more than 30 hours in a week and six hours on any day of that week.

Under the employers’ interpretation, Werdegar said, “the daily limit serves no function,” because employees could be required to work every day without overtime as long as at least one of their days was six hours or less.

On another issue, the court said employers who encourage employees to work an entire week without rest are violating the law even if they don’t require them to work.

K.L. Myles, a lawyer for one of the former Nordstrom workers, said she and her client were disappointed that the court read the law in a way that would allow an employer to require employees to work as many as 12 straight days, over a two-week period, without time off or overtime.

But Myles said the ruling should “help guarantee that workers receive the mandated day of rest to which they were entitled, and have recourse if they do not.”

Nordstrom said, “We are pleased the court interpreted the law in a way that promotes scheduling flexibility.” The case is Mendoza vs. Nordstrom, S224611.