Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

 

Page 1

 

S.C. Rules for Employees in Dispute Over Seating

 

From Staff and Wire Service Reports

 

Employers cannot deny a worker a place to sit just because they prefer the person stand, and they must consider the employee’s work station, not their overall duties, when determining whether to provide a seat, the California Supreme Court said yesterday.

The court’s opinion stemmed from lawsuits brought by cashiers at the CVS drugstore chain and tellers at Chase Bank who said they were wrongly denied a place to sit while working. Experts called the opinion a victory for the cashiers and tellers.

“When all is said and done, the burden of proof is going to be on employers in most situations to determine why a seat would not be reasonable,” Stephen Hirschfeld, a San Francisco-based labor lawyer who advises companies, told The Associated Press.

Companies likely will err on the side of providing a seat after yesterday’s opinion, and those facing similar lawsuits will settle, Hirschfeld said.

The ruling is aimed at clarifying state labor regulations that require employers in California to provide “working employees…with suitable seats when the nature of their work reasonably permits the use of seats.”

CVS and Chase Bank argued the rules require a holistic approach that determines the nature of employees’ work by considering the entire range of tasks they perform.

In CVS’ case, cashiers also stock shelves and perform other tasks that require them to stand. The company’s holistic approach would allow CVS to classify their jobs as “standing jobs” and deny them seats while working, Justice Carol Corrigan explained for a unanimous court.

The court rejected that interpretation, saying it ignored the “duration of those tasks, as well as where, and how often, they are performed.” It instead called for an assessment of employees’ tasks and duties at particular work stations, such as a cash registers or teller windows, when determining whether they should get a place to sit.

The state high court agreed to interpret the regulations at the request of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which certified several questions that arose in two related appeals. A district judge in San Diego in 2012 ruled in favor of the holistic approach.

Corrigan, however, said a seat must be provided if the task performed at a specific location reasonably permits seating, based on the totality of the circumstances.

“An employer’s business judgment and the physical layout of the workplace are relevant but not dispositive factors,” she wrote. “The inquiry focuses on the nature of the work, not an individual employee’s characteristics.”

The employer, she added, bears the burden of proving that a suitable seat is unavailable.

Michael Rubin, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the decision was a victory for all workers who have been denied a place to sit while they perform repetitive tasks in fixed locations.

“For the millions of California worker in the retail industry, this is going to mean that in the next few weeks, their employers will start giving them seats, which will promote health and comfort,” he said.

The court did find that some situations might make seating at work unfeasible, for example, if it interferes with standing tasks or affects overall job performance. CVS and Chase had argued employees provide better customer service while standing.

Suzanne Alexander, a spokeswoman for JP Morgan Chase, declined to comment. CVS Health spokesman Michael DeAngelis said CVS was pleased with the California Supreme Court’s ruling.

The company’s policies are consistent with the “long-understood, reasonable interpretation of the law” that employers can consider factors such as their desire to provide prompt and efficient customer service when deciding whether seating is appropriate.

Reuel Schiller, a labor law professor at Hastings College of the Law, characterized the ruling as being largely, but not completely, in favor of the plaintiffs.

“The big loss for the plaintiffs here is that business judgment is allowed as one of the objective factors in evaluating whether to provide seats,” he said.

The case is Kilby v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., 16 S.O.S. 1705.

 

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