Trial Court Finds McDonald’s Timekeeping and Pay Practices Violate CA Law

McDonald’s Restaurants of California (McDonald’s) operates over 100 corporate-owned fast food restaurants in California. Recently, McDonald’s has been embroiled in wage-and-hour litigation in California over its timekeeping and pay practices. See Sanchez, et al. v. McDonald Restaurants of California, et al., No. BC499888 (April 20, 2017, Los Angeles County Superior Court) (slip op. available here). The Sanchez litigation was brought because McDonald’s had configured its electronic timekeeping system to attribute all hours worked by a class member on a specific shift to the date on which the shift began rather than the date on which the work was actually performed. Slip op. at 2. For example, if an employee worked an overnight shift that began at 10:00 p.m. on December 28, 2013, and ended at 6:00 a.m. on December 29, 2013, and then worked another shift on December 29, 2013, that began at 2:00 p.m. and ended at 10:15 p.m., McDonald’s timekeeping software would attribute all eight hours of compensable time to the payroll date December 28, 2013, and the remaining 8.25 hours for December 29, 2013, resulting in just .25 hours of overtime work on December 29, 2013.

California Labor Code sections 510 and 500(a) require employers to pay an overtime premium of one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for “any work in excess of eight hours in one workday [defined as ‘any consecutive 24 hour period commencing at the same time each calendar day’]” and twice the employee’s regular rate of pay for “any work in excess of 12 hours in any one day [also defined as ‘any consecutive 24 hour period commencing at the same time each calendar day’.” (Emphasis added.) The Sanchez plaintiffs contended that McDonald’s timekeeping practice resulted in the failure to pay overtime to class members who worked an overnight shift followed by another shift the next day and who work more than eight hours in a 24-hour period. To illustrate, in the example above, if the hours worked were attributed to the day on which they were actually worked rather than the day on which the employee’s shift began, the employee would have worked 14.25 hours on December 29, 2013, which would have resulted in 4 hours of overtime and 2.25 hours of double-time for the hours worked in excess of 12 hours/day. This wage difference can be very meaningful to a typical McDonald’s employee who works at or near minimum wage.

In August 2016, the Sanchez court certified an “overtime subclass” defined as:

All class members who worked a shift that began on one calendar day and ended the next 10 calendar day parentheses an overnight shift) followed by a shift that began on the same calendar day as the overnight shift ended who were not paid all overtime for all time worked in excess of eight hours in a 24 hour period.

Slip op. at 1. The plaintiffs then moved for summary adjudication as to the issue of McDonald’s liability on the overtime cause of action. In opposing the motion, McDonald’s admitted that all the overtime subclass members experienced at least one week during which they recorded a shift that began on one calendar day and ended on the next calendar day, followed by a shift that began on the same calendar day the overnight shift ended, and were paid regular wages for hours that McDonald’s would have paid their overtime or double-time hours if McDonald’s had calculated their hours by reference to a calendar date.

On April 20, 2017, Judge Ann Jones of the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted summary adjudication against McDonald’s. In the ruling, the court cited Jakosalem v. Air Serv Corporation (N.D. Cal. Dec. 15, 2014, No. 13-CV-05944-SI), which held that “overtime calculations should be based on the amount of work completed by an employee during any single twenty-four hour workday period regardless of whether the employee works continuously through the day to divide.” Sanchez, at 4.

In crafting her ruling, Judge Jones also addressed McDonald’s claim that a workday need not be a calendar day and, in fact, McDonald’s set its workdays to start at 4:00 a.m. and end at 3:59 a.m. The problem, however, was that McDonald’s did not calculate overtime based on that workday. The court commented at the hearing that whether McDonald’s started its workday at 4 a.m. or midnight or another time was an “argument for another day,” because it would affect only damages in the case, not the fact that McDonald’s was liable for unpaid overtime. Law360.com, “McDonald’s Loses Calif. OT Fight, Queuing Up Damages Trial,” https://www.law360.com/articles/915697/(last accessed May 19, 2017). The court also overruled McDonald’s argument that it had substantially complied with California Labor Code section 510. The court found that the authority cited by McDonald’s only mentioned the “substantial compliance” doctrine in connection with Labor Code section 226(a), and that there is no authority for the “substantial compliance” doctrine applying to section 510.

The class action jury trial began last Tuesday, May 23, 2017, to determine what damages McDonald’s must pay to a class of nearly 14,000 employees and the related question of whether the company willfully skirted overtime law so as to entitle the employees to “waiting time” penalties under Labor Code section 203. This class trial should be manageable given that the underpayment of overtime wages and interest can be easily recalculated by an expert from the time punch records. Additional remedies would include interest, attorneys’ fees, and civil penalties under California’s Private Attorneys General Act. The trial is scheduled to conclude this Friday.

Authored By:
Robert Drexler, Senior Counsel
CAPSTONE LAW APC