Labor & Employment Law Blog

In Bradsbery, La Kimba Bradsbery and another employee alleged on behalf of themselves and a putative class that the defendant-employer, Vicar Operating, violated meal period provisions by requiring the class members to work shifts between five and six hours in length without a meal period and without a valid first meal period waiver in place. However, both employees had signed a meal period waiver with Vicar Operating, which stated that they voluntarily waived their right to a meal period within their first five hours of work when their shift was six hours or less and that this waiver could be revoked at any time by giving written notice of the revocation to their manager. Vicar Operating moved for summary adjudication to determine whether these “blanket” meal period waivers, which prospectively waived meal periods on qualifying shifts, were valid or unenforceable under the law. The appellate court upheld the trial court’s ruling in favor of Vicar Operating, on grounds that the law does not reflect an intent to prohibit prospective written waivers of meal periods and that the plaintiffs did not argue that, for example, their meal period waivers could not actually be freely revoked at any time, nor that class members had unknowingly signed them. 

Based on this new decision, California employers may provide prospective, “blanket” meal period waivers to their employees, provided that such waivers may be revoked by the employee at any time and provided that there are no “procedural” red flags with the waivers, such as pressuring employees to sign, burying the waivers within other documents such that the employees may not know what they are signing, or refusing to allow or accept revocations of the meal period waivers. 

Employers with questions about the Bradsbery case or meal period waivers may contact the authors of this post or their usual counsel at AALRR.

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