If your employer regularly cuts your meal or rest breaks short, interrupts them, or skips them altogether, you may be owed more than you think. A California Supreme Court decision Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc. made the stakes a lot clearer.
The background. When an employer doesn’t provide a legally required meal or rest break, it owes the employee an extra hour of pay, known as “premium pay.” For years, employers argued that this premium wasn’t really “wages,” so the usual consequences for unpaid wages shouldn’t apply.
What the court held. In Naranjo, the California Supreme Court rejected that argument and held that missed-break premium pay counts as wages. The extra hour compensates the employee, so it’s treated like any other wages owed.
Why it matters. Because premium pay is wages, two things follow. First, it has to be reported on your wage statements (your pay stubs). Second, if it isn’t paid on time, including when you leave the job, it can trigger “waiting time” penalties of up to 30 days’ pay. A pattern of missed breaks can add up to real money once those penalties are in play. (In a later decision, the Court did recognize a limited good-faith defense to certain wage-statement penalties, but the core rule stands: premium pay is wages.)
The takeaway. If your breaks were routinely missed, interrupted, or cut short, the premiums you’re owed, and the penalties that come with unpaid wages, may be on the table. These claims often turn on records and patterns over time, so the details matter.
At Grochow Law, we help California employees with wage-and-hour issues, including meal and rest break claims.
