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MEAL AND REST BREAK CLASS ACTIONS
California attorneys for denial of meal or rest breaks, laws and violations, lawyers
In California, employees are entitled to a 10-minute paid break for every four hours of work or major fraction thereof. Employees are also entitled to a 30-minute meal break after five hours of work. If a California employer denies its employees meal or rest breaks, the penalties may be enormous. For each denied break, an employee is entitled to one hour of pay. Thus, if an employer has denied meal or rest breaks to thousands of employees over several years, the penalties could run in the tens of millions of dollars. While overtime class actions have been more prevalent and garnered more publicity in recent years, California attorneys have brought more meal and rest break class actions of late. These meal and rest break claims have recently resulted in large verdicts as well. Recently, a verdict in excess of a hundred million dollars was entered against a California employer for meal and rest break violations. Significantly, the jury also awarded more than $50,000,000 in punitive damages after finding that the employer had consciously disregarded employees' rights under the California labor code.
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