## Facts

- Hourly, nonexempt restaurant employees brought a putative class action alleging violations of California meal-period and rest-break requirements and unpaid off-the-clock work.
- Employees alleged Brinker failed to provide compliant meal and rest periods, used a practice limiting rest breaks to one per four hours, scheduled early meals followed by long work stretches without additional breaks, and maintained policies that encouraged off-the-clock work.
- The trial court certified three subclasses: (1) rest periods, (2) meal periods, and (3) off-the-clock work.
- The Court of Appeal ordered decertification of all subclasses after granting writ relief.
- The California Supreme Court granted review to address class-certification standards and the substantive meaning of meal- and rest-break obligations under the Labor Code and Wage Order No. 5.

## Issues

1. Whether a trial court must resolve disputed threshold merits questions about claim elements before deciding class certification.
2. Whether an employer’s meal-period duty is to “provide” meal periods (make available and relieve duty) or to “ensure” employees take them and perform no work.
3. Whether meal-period timing requires a second meal no later than five hours after the first, or instead turns on total hours worked (over five and over ten).
4. How rest breaks are calculated and timed under Wage Order No. 5, including the meaning of “major fraction” of four hours.
5. Whether common questions and a common method of proof supported certification of subclasses for meal periods, rest breaks, and off-the-clock work.

## Decision

- The court held trial courts are not categorically required to decide all threshold merits disputes at certification; they must decide legal issues only when necessary to determine predominance and manageability.
- The court held an employer satisfies meal-period obligations by relieving employees of duty and making an uninterrupted 30-minute meal period available; the employer need not police breaks to ensure no work is performed.
- The court rejected a “rolling five-hour” rule between meal periods; it interpreted the statute to require one meal period for shifts over five hours and a second for shifts over ten hours, without a requirement that no more than five hours elapse between the first and second meals.
- The court interpreted “major fraction” for rest breaks to mean more than half of a four-hour period; it endorsed a good-faith effort to schedule rest breaks near the middle of work periods, with flexibility when impracticable.
- Class certification outcomes:
  - Rest-break subclass: certification upheld because evidence of uniform policies supported predominance.
  - Meal-period subclass: remanded for reconsideration under the clarified “provide” standard and timing rules.
  - Off-the-clock subclass: certification rejected because plaintiffs lacked common proof of a companywide policy requiring or knowingly permitting off-the-clock work.

## Legal Principles

- Class certification is procedural, but courts may resolve legal questions that are necessary to determine whether common issues predominate.
- Meal periods: employers must provide meal periods by relieving employees of all duty and permitting an uninterrupted break; employers may not impede or discourage breaks, but need not ensure employees take them or refrain from working.
- Meal-period timing: compliance depends on whether total hours worked trigger first and second meal obligations (over five hours; over ten hours), not on a rolling interval between successive meals.
- Rest breaks: one 10-minute paid rest period is owed per four hours worked or major fraction thereof; “major fraction” means more than two hours, and mid-period timing is preferred where practicable.
- Off-the-clock class claims require evidence of a common unlawful policy or a common method of proving liability; individualized manager-by-manager deviations from lawful written policies generally defeat predominance.

## Conclusion

The court clarified California meal- and rest-break duties and emphasized that class certification turns on predominance and common proof, upholding certification for a rest-break subclass, requiring reconsideration of meal-break certification under corrected legal standards, and disallowing an off-the-clock subclass absent evidence of a uniform unlawful practice.


Brinker Rest. Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal. 4th 1004, 273 P.3d 513 (Cal. 2012)