David v. Queen of the Valley Med. Ctr., 2020 WL 3529683 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020)

Registered nurse Joana David sued her former employer, Queen of the Valley Medical Center, for allegedly failing to pay her for meal breaks and rest periods and for failure to pay minimum wage.  David also alleged she was not paid for all wages that were owed because of the hospital’s time-rounding policy.  The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the hospital, and the Court of Appeal affirmed.  Summary judgment was properly granted as to the meal and rest break claims because there was no evidence that the hospital had actual or constructive knowledge that David’s meal and rest breaks were being interrupted with work-related discussions:  A supervisor’s “walking into the break room and looking at the clock, without more,” did not constitute “a direction to prematurely terminate a break.”  Further, an “instruction to avoid overtime, without more, cannot reasonably be understood as an affirmative direction to perform work off-the-clock” (quoting the trial court’s order).  Finally, the trial court properly held that the hospital’s rounding policy was neutral insofar as it was established by the hospital’s expert (and unrebutted by plaintiff’s expert) that 47 percent of plaintiff’s rounded time entries favored plaintiff or had no impact, and 53 percent favored the hospital.  See also Betancourt v. OS Restaurant Servs., LLC, 49 Cal. App. 5th 240 (2020) (prevailing plaintiff who successfully sued for employer’s failure to provide meal and rest breaks (but no wage payment violations) is not entitled to recover attorney’s fees).

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.