California employment case index

Two Nordstrom employees worked stretches of more than six consecutive days, but never seven days inside a single established workweek, and always with at least one short shift. The Ninth Circuit certified three questions, and a unanimous Supreme Court answered all of them on one page: the day-of-rest guarantee runs by the workweek rather than on a rolling seven days, so runs spanning two workweeks are not per se prohibited; the six-hour exemption applies only where the employee never exceeds six hours on any day of that week, because the contrary reading would let a single short shift swallow the rule; and an employer 'causes' a lost day of rest by inducing the employee to forgo it, owing a duty to apprise employees of the right and then maintain absolute neutrality about its exercise.

Stoneledge paid furniture sales associates on commission with a guaranteed $12.01 hourly draw that was deducted from later commissions. The Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment for the employer, holding that Wage Order No. 7 requires separate compensation for rest periods and applies equally to commissioned employees, piece-rate employees, or any other system that does not pay for rest breaks. The draws were not compensation at all – at best, interest-free loans.

The Sixth District affirmed summary judgment for the City, holding that a five-year pattern of stripping a female employee's coveted technical duties was "a collection of isolated employment decisions" that had acquired permanence by 1996 under Richards v. CH2M Hill — and that a biased supervisor's sexist remarks could not show pretext where he neither knew of her candidacy nor took part in the challenged hiring.