The Oregon Court of Appeals recently ruled that employers must ensure employees take a full 30-minute meal period.
Background:
Oregon requires employers to provide employees with a 30-minute, unpaid meal break for shifts lasting more than six hours. A second unpaid meal period is required for employees who work 14 or more hours.
Previously, the Oregon Supreme Court held that while employees could sue an employer who required them to work during an unpaid meal period, employees did not have a right of action against employers who paid them for interrupted meal periods. Subsequently, the regulations were amended to stipulate that “if an employee is not relieved of all duties for 30 continuous minutes during the meal period, the employer must pay the employee for the entire 30-minute meal period.
Oregon’s New Ruling:
In Maza v. Waterford Operations, LLC, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that employers are strictly liable to pay for the full 30-minute meal period if the employee fails to receive an uninterrupted 30-minute meal break, regardless of the reason the employee didn’t receive their full break. This means that even if an employee voluntarily returns to work in 29 minutes (as opposed to 30 minutes), and even if the employer is unaware that the employee has returned to work early and did nothing to require or encourage the employee to return early, the employee may sue the employer to recover a full 30 minutes of pay.
Note: The court also found that an employee handbook policy that states that meal breaks are mandatory, or that requires employees to notify the company if they’d like to skip a meal period, or work off-the-clock, did not shield employers from liability.
Compliance Recommendation:
Oregon employers should instruct employees to take a full, uninterrupted 30-minute meal period where applicable and train supervisors to ensure their employees take required breaks. Please contact your dedicated service professional with any questions.