Sweet success: See's Candy defeats wage and hour class action

Debbie Salazar alleged that her employer, See's Candies, Inc., consistently failed to provide second meal breaks to employees when a single shift exceeded 10 hours. She claimed she could provide evidence that See's preprinted meal break schedule forms don't include space to schedule a second meal break.

Salazar attempted to assert her claim as a class action. The trial court and appellate court, however, refused to allow the case to proceed as a class action because See's presented evidence that at least some employees took second meal breaks despite the meal break schedule forms. Therefore, Salazar couldn't maintain a class action because common issues of proof didn't predominate over individual issues.

See's meal break policies and practices

Under California law, employees "who work a shift longer than 10 hours must be provided two 30-minute meal periods." If an employee misses a meal period, she will be compensated with an additional hour of pay.

See's HR manual and the instructions given to managers included meal break policies in compliance with California law. New employees were instructed to read the documents and refer to a preprinted break and lunch schedule provided before each shift.

The schedules included columns for the first 30-minute break but not a column for the second break. See's reconciled the discrepancy by explaining it "did not schedule shifts that exceeded 10 hours and it was 'very rare' for employees to work such shifts." In fact, time records showed that approximately 0.3% of shifts were longer than 10 hours.