California Supreme Court Prohibits Rounding for Meal Periods

The California Supreme Court issued a ruling addressing legal standards for meal period violations on Thursday, February 25, 2021. In Donohue v. AMN Services llc (2021) 11 cal.5th 58 the court's opinion required strict compliance for providing meal periods and specifically condemned the practice of rounding to the nearest time increment for meal periods.  The court also explained that a presumption of liability, unless proved otherwise, will apply when time records show shortened, delayed, or meal periods are missed.

As a result of this ruling, we understand California law to prohibit the use of federally approved impartial time rounding standards to record start and stop time for meal periods (typically known as lunch or dinner breaks). The time rounding options in Virtual TimeClock are global, that is, they apply to all start and stop actions. Therefore, Virtual TimeClock's time rounding options should not be enabled to track time for California employees with meal breaks.  

Please review this ruling with your legal and labor compliance professional for their advice on this ruling.  We welcome your feedback and any further questions as to how to configure Virtual TimeClock for your particular use.

Redcort Software does not issue or attempt to provide legal advice. We attempt to keep our customers up-to-date with potential changes to state and federal labor rules as we become aware of them. Our desire is to raise awareness as to how such issues may affect the use of Virtual TimeClock for employee time tracking.