Majority of California Supreme Court Justices conclude that the California Pay Scale Manual issued by CalHR controls over Wage Orders for public employees

Some wage and hour decisions have broad implications. Others, no so much. Here, in Stoetzl v. Department of Human Resources (July 1, 2019), the California Supreme Court issued a decision that falls decidedly into the later category. Stoetzl concerns a trial on the issue of unpaid wages for what the Court calls “entry-exit walk time” and “duty-integrated walk time.” Sounds like we are about to get a decision about a California equivalent to preliminary and post-liminary time, right? Not so much. Stoetzl is really about whether the relevant Wage Order (Wage Order 4) or the California Pay Scale Manual issued by CalHR (read about CalHR here) controls pay obligations for “entry-exit walk time” and “duty-integrated walk time” for represented and unrepresented state employees working in prisons.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Stoetzl might impact lots of employees; California has a metric <BLEEP> ton of employees. But that’s really the only group impacted by this decision, since the tension arises as a result of the conflict between the Pay Scale Manual’s express adoption of FLSA provisions and the Wage Order’s use of California’s differing and more protective standards. On top of all that, the represented state employees are bound by a collective bargaining agreement that controls certain pay obligations.

If you want to find something of broader note in Stoetzl, it again demonstrates that less protective FLSA provisions do no displace more protective California laws and regulations unless there is an express statement of an intent to do so. Here, in this 5-2 decision, a majority of the Court concluded that the Legislature properly empowered CalHR to define state employee pay provisions, and CalHR chose to expressly adopt FLSA rules that governed such things as walk time.

The minority opinion, written by Justice Liu, with Justice Cuellar concurring, found particular fault with the majority’s discussion of the minimum wage pay issue for the unrepresented class of employees.