Employers not required to foot the bill for shoes

Just because a restaurant requires employees to wear slipresistant shoes for safety reasons, it doesn’t mean the restaurant has to pay for them. At least not according to a state appeals court.

In a ruling published Monday as a precedent for other cases, the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento upheld a judge’s dismissal of a suit against BJ’s Restaurants by a former food server who objected to paying for clothing she was required to wear.

The company requires hourly workers at its 63 restaurants in California to wear black, closetoed, slipresistant shoes. It doesn’t specify a brand or a particular style. Shoes fitting that description are advertised online for prices starting around $40.

Krista Townley, who worked at a restaurant in Stockton from 2011 to 2013, filed suit in 2014 on behalf of all affected employees. She cited a state law that requires the employer to pay for “all necessary expenditures incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties.”

But the appeals court said the law does not cover basic wardrobe items that are “usual and generally usable” in the occupation and are not part of a company uniform.

Townley “does not cite any authority holding that an employer is required (by the state law) to reimburse an employee for basic, nonuniform wardrobe items, such as the slipresistant shoes at issue in this case,” Justice Kathleern Butz said in the 30 ruling.

Townley’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment. She could ask the state Supreme Court to review the case.