An Administrator's Guide to California Private School Law

Chapter 6 – Wage And Hour Laws

investigate or respond to an alarm, or if they had been waiting for, and denied, a reliever. Given these circumstances, the California Supreme Court ruled that the guard’s on-call time was compensable “hours worked”. In evaluating whether the on- call time was “hours worked”, the court examined how much control CPS had over the guards. The court focused on factors such as whether there was an on premises living requirement, whether there were excessive geographical restrictions on movement, whether the time limit for response was restrictive, whether the on call employee could easily trade responsibilities, and whether the employee could engage in personal activities during on call time. Finally, the court looked to see if the on-call time is spent primarily for the benefit of the employer. Here the guards were required to “reside” in their trailers as a condition of employment and spend on-call hours in their trailer or at the worksite. They had to respond immediately to any calls, and if they wanted to leave, they had to obtain relief and remain no more than 30 minutes away from the site. The court determined this time was primarily for the benefit of CPS. CPS argued that the guards engaged in personal activities during on-call time, such as sleeping, showering, eating, or watching television. However, the court noted that simply because the guards were permitted to engage in personal activities did not lessen the control CPS had over their movements. The court also considered whether 8 hours of sleep time could be excluded from the guards’ 24-hour shift as unpaid time. The court ruled that the guards must be compensated for this sleep time. The court’s decision overruled prior case law that permitted employers to deduct sleep time from hours worked. This prior case law relied on a federal regulation which permits employers to exclude sleep time. The court reasoned that a federal standard should not be implicitly incorporated into a Wage Order absent convincing evidence that the Industrial Welfare Commission intended to do so. Thus, the absence of any explicit language in Wage Order 4 (which applied to the guards) regarding the exclusion of sleep time undermined the notion that the Commission intended to incorporate that federal regulation. As an example, the court noted that in Wage Orders 5 and 9, such language is explicitly stated (“time spent sleeping shall not be included as hours worked”). Since there was no evidence that the Commission intended to exclude sleep time from hours worked under Wage Order 4, the court held that CPS must compensate the guards for this time.

Schools who have employees who reside on school premises should consult with an attorney to determine if all time spent on the premises is compensable.

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