This is the fun thing about employment law. Just when the courts resolve some arcane aspect of wage and house law that other lawyers think is unbelievably esoteric, a new one pops up:
Wage and hour lawyers are talking about a law and motion ruling made last week by Orange County Superior Court Judge David Velasquez, holding that waiting time penalties under Labor Code § 203 were recoverable as restitution under Business & Professions Code § 17203. In Ybarra v. Aramark Corp., No. 30-2008-00180008-CU-OE-CXC, the court treated section 203′s “wages of the employee [that] shall continue as a penalty” as ordinary wages.
This, of course, will touch off a big hullaballoo.
This particular statute is even more ambiguous than the meal/rest breaks because it says, “the wages of the employee shall continue as a penalty.” This could mean it’s both a vested wage and a penalty, the latter being unavailable under the UCL. Of course, this is a smaller issue because it is automatically capped at 30 days, but still raises all of the other questions that the rest/break “premiums” did, and it continues a trend. The latter fact may be the most alarming for the defense bar.
I admire this lawyer’s creativity, even if I think this ruling isn’t correct and will only add fuel to the blowback fires that are already burning.
The always excellent UCL Practitioner has the order, here.
