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Law Extending Labor Rules to Public Sector Does Not Apply to Charter Cities—C.A.
Opinion Says Legislative Statement That Employee Wellbeing Is Matter of ‘Statewide Concern’ Is Insufficient to Overcome Right to Self-Regulation
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal has held that a statute adopted in 2022 extending the meal and rest break protections previously applicable only to private sector healthcare workers or to employees working for state or municipal medical facilities does not apply to charter cities.
Acknowledging legislative findings declaring that “[w]orker health and safety and high-quality patient care are matters of statewide concern,” the court opined that the language is insufficient to overcome the general rule that charter cities may regulate themselves.
At issue is the so-called “home rule” established in Art. XI. §5 of the California Constitution, which provides that charter cities “may make and enforce all ordinances and regulations in respect to municipal affairs,…and in respect to other matters they shall be subject to general laws.”
Charter Cities’ Authority
In the 2012 decision in State Building & Construction Trades Council of California v. City of Vista, the California Supreme Court announced a test for determining whether a charter city’s authority must cede to the state’s desire to regulate it.
Under the Vista framework, if the regulation involves a matter of statewide concern and is reasonably related to addressing the topic, then the conflicting charter city measure ceases to be a ‘municipal affair’ and the Legislature may impose its will on the locality.
Alameda Superior Court Judge Jason Clay, sitting by assignment, authored Tuesday’s opinion, noting that “[c]ourts have settled that meal and rest breaks and related compensation premiums are not matters of statewide concern.” He opined:
“If it had intended to challenge the constitutional status quo, the Legislature presumably would have provided a robust legislative record.…Merely declaring that ‘[w]orker health and safety and high quality patient care are matters of statewide concern’…does not demonstrate that the Legislature intended to challenge the legal precedent that [these matters are not] of statewide concern.”
Putative Class Action
The question arose after Suzannah Levy, Megan Green, and Aizelle Cunanan—nurses employed by the City and County of San Francisco, a consolidated locality governed by Article XI—filed a putative class action complaint alleging that the public employer had failed to comply with the meal and rest break rules established by Labor Code 512.1.
That section was enacted following the passage of Senate Bill 1334 in 2022. It provides that “[a]n employee…shall be entitled to one unpaid 30-minute meal period on shifts over 5 hours and a second…on shifts over 10 hours” and “shall be entitled to a rest period…at the rate of 10 minutes net rest time per 4 hours or a major fraction thereof.”
Subdivision (e) clarifies that “employer” includes “the state,…counties, municipalities, and the Regents of the University of California.”
After the defendant demurred to the pleading, asserting that the Legislature failed to provide a clear intention to include charter cities and counties in the covered municipalities, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman sustained the objection.
Tuesday’s opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice Tracie L. Brown and Justice Jon B. Streeter, affirms the ensuing defense judgment.
Home Rule
Clay wrote:
“Plaintiffs argue that the Legislature’s finding that ‘[w]orker health and safety and high-quality patient care are matters of statewide concern’…invokes the constitutional home rule doctrine and therefore manifests ‘clear intent’ to apply section 512.1 to charter cities. We are not persuaded.”
The jurist said that the term “municipalities” is ambiguous, as it could refer to all municipalities or only ones organized under the general laws of California. As a result, he turned to legislative intent for guidance as to the scope of the law.
Saying that “statewide concern” is not a “term of art” only applicable to cases dealing with the authority of charter cities, he said:
“[W]e will not construe Senate Bill 1334’s oblique reference to a portion of the home rule doctrine as an enunciation of the Legislature’s intent that section 512.1 was intended to apply to charter cities and therefore the City.”
He continued:
“Here, the Legislature’s findings make no mention of those cases [holding that breaks are not matters of statewide concern], how conditions have changed since those cases, or how section 512.1 is narrowly tailored to address the purported matters of statewide concern.”
No Explicit Instruction
Saying that the Legislature could have explicitly expressed an intent to reach charter cities, he pointed to Senate Bill 616, adopted in 2023, in which the body adopted a finding that “establishing uniform statewide regulation of certain aspects of paid sick leave is a matter of statewide concern and is not a municipal affair as that term is used in Section 5 of Article XI of the California Constitution.”
Addressing the plaintiffs’ argument that the California Supreme Court has made clear that laws governing conditions of employment are to be construed broadly, he commented:
“We do not find section 512.1’s text unambiguous as to whether the statute applies to the City, and other considerations do not support the finding of such legislative intent. Considering the City’s sovereignty over its employees’ compensation and bearing in mind that judicial restraint requires that we not decide constitutional questions where statutory grounds are available and dispositive, we will not infer an intent to contravene the City’s home rule authority without more explicit guidance from the Legislature.”
The case is Levy v. City and County of San Francisco, 2025 S.O.S. 2650.
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