The Washington Court of Appeals has just released its decision in Pellino v. Brink's Inc., concerning Washington's meal and rest breaks requirements.  Brink's paid its armored car drivers and couriers for their meal and rest break time, but the employees claimed that they were not permitted to engage in personal pursuits and were never relieved of work responsibilities during these times.  They sued for additional wages and won over $2 million after trial.  The Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment and directed the company to pay an additional amount to cover the employees' attorney fees and costs for the appeal.

The Court adopted the view of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries that, even when the employer pays for the meal break, employees must be given a total of 30 minutes to eat and relax without doing any active work.  If the employer fails to do that, as happened here, the remedy is to pay for the time twice—likely at overtime rates—plus interest and attorney fees.

Under Washington law, employees are entitled to a paid 10-minute rest break for each four hours worked, plus an unpaid 30-minute meal period after 5 hours of work.  It has long been established that if an employee is not given time to take a rest break, the employer must pay extra for the missed break.  This principle is based on the fact that the law requires rest breaks to be paid.  That means for a standard eight-hour shift, for example, the employee is entitled to 20 minutes of paid rest time.  But, if the employee does not get a break, the employer has actually received more work from the employee than legally permissible and, therefore, the employee is entitled to be paid for that extra work. 

Meal breaks, however, are different because the law permits them to be unpaid if the employee is relieved of work responsibilities.  Because of this difference, employers have argued that, if an employee works during what would otherwise be an unpaid meal break, all they need to do is to pay for the missed break—not pay for the time worked and give the employee another 30 minutes of unpaid time to eat.  Indeed, "straight eight hours" shifts, where the employee is at work only eight hours, does not have an unpaid meal break and eats on paid time, are common in some industries—especially those that have continuous operations such as at petroleum refineries.  However, if the Brink's decision remains the law—the Washington Supreme Court could disagree—it will be challenging for employers to have work schedules where employees remain on duty while they eat a meal even if they are paid for the time, unless they are paid double (or more) for the time.

© 2011 Perkins Coie LLP