Sleep Time Now Compensable Hours under California Law

California Wage Order 4

California has different laws regarding wages for those required to be on-call or on the job 24 hours per day. For some jobs, such as those working on marine boats or in the medical industry, there are exclusions that allow the employer to avoid paying for time when the employee is asleep (the caveat is that there must be adequate provisions, and reasonable expectation that the employee can sleep without interruption). Those jobs, however, fall into California Wage Orders 5 and 9.

Wage Order 4 has no provisions to exclude sleep pay. That was the basis of the lawsuit of Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions. Here is the short version of that suit:

CPS had Mendiola sign an agreement regarding his hours of work. Part of that agreement was that he would be on the premises for 24 hours, but allowed to stay in the trailer provided during the night so he could sleep. But if an alarm went off, or something needed to be investigated, he was required to attend to it. The only pay he received was when he was actively investigating.

The argument against CPS was that the employee would never truly be able to get away from work, and that even by being present he was a deterrent to theft, vandalism, and other crimes. So even though the employee was sleeping, he was engaging in work related duties.

The California Supreme Court sided with Mendiola on his claim that he should be compensated for the time that he spent on duty, but was able to sleep.

Contact Phillips Dayes Regarding Your Back Pay Lawsuit

If you have worked a job where you were required to be on-call, but you were never able to fully get away from your work duties, you may be able to collect back pay for the hours you worked. Schedule your free case review with an attorney from P.C. by calling 1-800-917-4000, or by filling out the contact form on this page.

Sleep time compensation attorneys with Phillips Dayes can handle cases from all over California.