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Brinkley v. Public Storage, Inc.
Filed October 28, 2008,
Second District, Div. Three,
California Court of Appeals
Cite as 2008 SOS 5958


Meal Periods are Made Available and Need not be Actually Taken

Fred Brinkley (Brinkley) worked as a nonexempt property manager of Public Storage, Inc. (PSI) for four months before he was terminated.

In those four months, the company paid Brinkley twice per month by check including paystubs categorized into three: “regular earnings, overtime earnings and “Assoc Mileage”.

Some of Brinkley’s pay stubs erroneously stated the associated mileage rate while the other stubs listed a correct rate.

The company required a 30-minute meal break after a 5-hour shift. On Brinkley’s part, he hardly had a full 30-minute meal break as the same was uninterrupted by his work. In fact, there were times when his meal breaks were after a 6-hour shift or none at all.

On PSI’s part, employees working during lunch were reprimanded.

Brinkley also hardly took the required two ten-minute rest periods during the day.

Consequently, Brinkley filed a class action against PSI for violating §226 of the Labor Code or failing to provide an accounting of earned wages accurately. He also alleged non-compliance with meal periods and rest periods.

When the class action was certified, PSI moved for summary adjudication. The trial court granted the same. Hence, Brinkley appealed.

On appeal, the appeal court affirmed the trial court’s ruling. The court made the following pronouncement.

  • 226 was not knowingly and intentionally violated

    Moreover, Brinkley and class members did not suffer any injury. No evidence was submitted to support such claim. Hence, PSI incurred no violations.

  • Misstatement of the associated mileage rate was unintended and was corrected when discovered

    Further, no benefit was derived through such over statement.

  • Meal periods were made available

It was Brinkley who failed to avail of the same. Under §226.7(a) and Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage order 4-2001, meal periods need not be given within the first 5 hours of the shift.

PSI had no obligation to ensure that meal periods were actually taken by its employees.


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