California Labor Code Section 512 provides that employees are entitled to a thirty (30) minute off-duty meal period after five hours of work, with a second 30-minute off-duty meal period required after ten hours of work. Additionally, Section 512 allows for the first meal period to be waived by mutual consent of both the employer and employee if the shift ranges between five and six hours.  Most Wage Orders issued by the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) contain similar provisions for meal periods and their potential waiver. 

In the recent case Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc.i (Bradsbery), the Court addressed a question of first impression: whether an employer and employee can mutually agree to waive a meal period prospectively. 

Plaintiffs, former employees of Vicar Operating, Inc., sued, alleging that the company failed to provide the required meal periods as mandated by Labor Code Section 512 and IWC Wage Order Nos. 4 and 5. The Plaintiffs claimed that Vicar required them to work shifts between five and six hours without a meal period and without waiving their legally mandated meal periods by mutual consent. 

Vicar argued that the Plaintiffs had signed a valid written agreement that prospectively waived all waivable meal periods throughout their employment, and that these waivers were revocable at any time.  

On appeal was the lower court’s decision in favor of Vicar, which found that the waivers signed by Plaintiffs were valid under Section 512 and the wage orders. Despite Plaintiff’s contentions that prospective waivers allowed employers to circumvent statutory meal break requirements and denied employees a meaningful opportunity to exercise their right to meal breaks, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling.  

What Does it Mean 

The Court’s affirmation of the judgment in favor of Vicar means that a prospective written waiver of a 30-minute meal period for shifts between five and six hours is consistent with the text and purpose of Section 512 and Wage Order Nos. 4 and 5.  Particularly persuasive to the Court was the absence of any evidence that the waivers were unconscionable or unduly coercive and the fact that legislative and administrative history confirmed the Legislature and IWC’s determination that such waivers are consistent with the welfare of employees.ii 

However, given the complex nature of wage and hour laws in California, and the fact that Bradsbery is based on two non-agricultural-related Wage Orders, employers operating under agricultural Wage Orders (e.g., Wage Order No. 14) should consult legal counsel before asking employees to sign prospective meal period waivers.