California employment case index

Two veterinary workers signed a standing written waiver of their meal break for shifts of six hours or less — revocable at any time — then sued years later, arguing meal periods can be waived only shift by shift after the right accrues. Division Seven disagreed: section 512 and the wage orders are silent on timing and form, and eighty years of IWC history treats written prospective waivers as employee protection, not evasion. But the holding is expressly conditional: the court reserved unconscionable, coerced, unknowing, and irrevocable waivers, and oral prospective waivers entirely. Bradsbery is a safe harbor for clean waiver programs — and a litigation roadmap against defective ones.

The Ninth Circuit held the Federal Arbitration Act preempts AB 51 (Labor Code § 432.6), California's attempt to ban mandatory employment arbitration, because a state rule that burdens the formation of arbitration agreements stands as an obstacle to the FAA.

Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (2021) 11 Cal.5th 58 holds that employers may not round meal-period time punches, and that time records showing short, late, or missed meal periods raise a rebuttable presumption of a violation — usable even at summary judgment.

Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court (2012) 53 Cal.4th 1004 is California’s foundational meal-and-rest decision: an employer must provide a duty-free meal period but need not ensure no work is done; it sets the meal-timing and rest-period rules and confirms that courts may resolve merits questions enmeshed with class certification.

Fired the day she returned from pregnancy-related bed rest, a caregiver defeated summary judgment with declarations from four coworkers describing pregnancy-triggered firings by the same supervisors — evidence the court held admissible as a matter of law to prove motive, not propensity.

When Lillian Garland returned from pregnancy disability leave to find her receptionist job filled, California’s guarantee of leave and reinstatement collided with her employer’s theory that Title VII forbade treating pregnancy “better” than other disabilities. The Supreme Court sided with California: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is a floor beneath which pregnancy benefits may not drop, not a ceiling above which states may not rise — and employers can always comply with both laws by leveling benefits up. Guerra remains the constitutional foundation of the PDLL and of every California pregnancy protection built since.