California Court Ushers In Sweeping Changes For Scheduling Policies

A California Court of Appeal just announced a sweeping change in California's reporting time pay rules which now prohibits a common scheduling practice used by employers throughout the state (Ward v. Tilly's, Inc.). Yesterday's decision means that California employers who require employees to call in two hours before a shift to determine whether or not they are needed, and report to work if called in, are now obligated to pay that employee, at a minimum, for two hours of work even if the employee is informed that there is no need to come in to work that day. Unfortunately, the case left many questions unanswered and, as a result, you should be careful to craft scheduling policies that avoid the same pitfalls seen in that case.

Background And Decision

The facts of the case are relatively straightforward. Under Tilly's scheduling policy, Skylar Ward was required to call in approximately two hours before the start of her shift to determine whether she needed to come to work. If Tilly's told her to report to work, she was required to do so and would be paid for that shift as normal. However, if Tilly's informed her that there was no need to come in, Ms. Ward would receive no compensation—after all, according to Tilly's, all she did was make a single call and never actually reported to the worksite.

Nevertheless, in a precedent-setting ruling, the court held that, under the facts of this case, merely calling in for one of these mandatory on-call shifts constitutes "report[ing] to work," which entitled Ms. Ward and her coworkers to a minimum of two hours of reporting time pay under the applicable wage order. In relevant part, the court examined the following language from the reporting time rule contained within Wage Order No. 7(A):

Each workday an employee is required to report for work and does report, but is not put to work or is furnished less than half said employee's usual or scheduled day's work, the employee shall be paid for half the usual or scheduled day's work, the employee shall be paid for half the usual or scheduled day's work, but in no event for less than two (2) hours nor more than four (4) hours, at the employee's regular rate of pay, which shall not be less than minimum wage.

Prior to the case, various courts had disagreed about what it truly meant to "report to work" within the context of this provision, with many courtsnot to mention employersunderstandably believing that this required the employee to physically report to...