?Takeaway: Reading a provision of the California Labor Code together with a provision of the California Code of Civil Procedure leads to the conclusion that where weekly wages are due to be paid on Saturday, they may be paid on the following Monday.
?Under California Labor Code Section 204(d), wages for employees who are paid weekly must be paid “not more than seven calendar days following the close of the payroll period.” An employee brought a wage and hour lawsuit arguing that this meant that if the seventh calendar day fell on a Saturday, the wages must be paid on that Saturday.
The trial court recently rejected this claim based on California Code of Civil Procedure Section 12a, which provides that weekends are holidays and that “[i]f the last day for the performance of any act provided or required by law to be performed within a specified period of time is a holiday, then that period is hereby extended to and including the next day that is not a holiday.”
The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and the employee appealed.
The employee who brought the lawsuit works for a company that pays its employees weekly. The pay period runs from Sunday through the following Saturday. The company pays its employees on the second Monday after the end of the pay period, which is nine calendar days after the end of the pay period. If Monday is a holiday, it pays its employees on Tuesday, which is 10 calendar days after the end of the pay period.
So, for example, if the pay period runs from Sunday, Jan. 1, through Saturday, Jan. 7, it would pay its employees on Monday, Jan. 16; if Monday, Jan. 16, is a holiday, it would pay its employees on Tuesday, Jan. 17.
The employee brought an action under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). PAGA allows an employee to bring a civil action against an employer on behalf of himself and other employees to recover civil penalties for violations of the Labor Code. In this case, the employee alleged that the company’s practice of paying its employees on the ninth calendar day following the close of the pay period violated Section 204(d).
The employer sought to have the action dismissed before trial, basing its argument almost entirely on a policies and interpretations manual promulgated by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), the agency charged with enforcing most provisions of the Labor Code. The DLSE manual provides that, based on Section 12a of the California Code of Civil Procedure, if a designated payday falls on a holiday, wages may be paid on the next business day. Weekends are included in the definition of holidays.
The employee argued that Section 12a does not override Section 204(d)’s clear directive that employees must be paid no later than seven calendar days after the close of the payroll period.
The trial court agreed with the employer, noting that although it was not bound by the DLSE manual, it found the DLSE’s interpretation of the relevant Code of Civil Procedure section to be both persuasive and reasonable. The trial court dismissed the action, and the employee appealed.
Court Interprets Two Statutes Together
The employee argued that because Section 12a is part of the Code of Civil Procedure, it applies only to deadlines or time limits that are related in some way to civil procedure—that is, the procedure by which civil court actions are brought, prosecuted and resolved.
The appeals court noted that although that argument had some superficial appeal, it could not be squared with the language of Section 12a, which states that it applies to “all provisions of law providing or requiring an act to be performed on a particular day or within a specified period of time, whether expressed in this or any other code or statute, ordinance, rule, or regulation.”
In interpreting a statute, a court first looks at the plain, commonsense meaning of the words in that statute, the appeals court said, because that is generally the most reliable indicator of legislative intent and purpose.
Further, the court said, where two codes are to be construed, they should be read together and interpreted to give effect, when possible, to all the provisions in both codes.
Here, the court said, the trial court simply gave effect to both Section 12a and Section 204(d).
In affirming the trial court’s ruling, the appeals court dismissed the action and explained that it was applying the rule in Section 12a to the time limits in Section 204(d). It therefore held that when weekly wages are due to be paid on a weekend or a holiday, they may be paid on the next day that is not a holiday.
Parsons v. Estenson Logistics LLC, Calif. Ct. App., No. C093489 (Dec. 28, 2022).
Joanne Deschenaux, J.D., is a freelance writer in Annapolis, Md.