Hospitality consultant Cyrus Batchan reviews Troester v. Starbucks, on de minimis wage claims

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. - April 29, 2019 - PRLog -- Restaurateur Cyrus Batchan has published a comment on a court case of importance to wages paid in the hospitality industry, whether the de minimis doctrine under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act applies to unpaid wages claims under California labor laws. The complete article will be available on Mr. Batchan's blog at https://cyrusbatchan.blogspot.com/

The factual background of the case is laid out in the opinion: "On August 6, 2012, plaintiff Douglas Troester filed the original complaint in an action in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of himself and a putative class of all nonmanagerial California employees of defendant Starbucks Corporation (Starbucks) who performed store closing tasks from mid-2009 to October 2010. Troester worked for Starbucks as a shift supervisor. Starbucks removed the action to federal district court and moved for summary judgment on the ground that Troester's uncompensated time was so minimal that Starbucks was not required to compensate him. Troester submitted evidence that during the alleged class period, Starbucks's computer software required him to clock out on every closing shift before initiating the software's 'close store procedure' on a separate computer terminal in the back office. The close store procedure transmitted daily sales, profit and loss, and store inventory data to Starbucks's corporate headquarters. After Troester completed this task, he activated the alarm, exited the store, and locked the front door. Troester also submitted evidence that he walked his coworkers to their cars in compliance with Starbucks's policy. In addition, Troester submitted evidence that he occasionally reopened the store to allow employees to retrieve items they left behind, waited with employees for their rides to arrive, or brought in store patio furniture mistakenly left outside."

District Court found that over a 17-month period, Troester worked an additional 12 hours and 50 minutes, little over a $100 worth at a minimum wage of $8 per hour. Thus, the district court ruled that de minimis doctrine applied and granted summary judgment in favor of Starbucks.  On appeal, the Ninth Circuit certified the question to the California Supreme Court, whether federal FLSA de minimis doctrine was recognized under California law and whether California wage law had its own de minimis doctrine.

California Supreme Court first concluded that neither California statute nor Industrial Wage Commission wage orders adopted federal de minimis doctrine for California wage claims.  As to whether California law recognizes its own form of de minimis exception to wage laws, the Court noted that "application of a de minimis rule is inappropriate when 'the law under which this action is prosecuted does care for small things.'"  The Court went on to explain that "the regulatory scheme of which the relevant statutes and wage order provisions are a part is indeed concerned with 'small things.'"  Therefore, the de minimis rule did not apply to unpaid wage claims in California.

*** Cyrus Leon Batchan is a business consultant in Sherman Oaks, California. He has significant "hands on" experience with hospitality businesses.

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