What it says.
What it does not decide.

Labor Code § 204.1

California dealer commission definition and payday rule

Proposition

The statute defines covered commissions and permits specified DMV-licensed vehicle dealers to pay true commission wages monthly on a predesignated payday.

Limit

The timing rule does not convert base, hourly, salary, piece-rate, or other wage components into commission wages.

Labor Code § 221

California wage takeback prohibition

Proposition

Section 221 generally prohibits an employer from collecting or receiving from an employee wages already paid.

Limit

Whether a later debit reaches earned wages or reconciles a lawful advance or unfulfilled earning condition requires the plan and transaction facts.

Labor Code § 224

California authorized deductions

Proposition

Section 224 identifies limited categories of deductions, including those required by law or expressly authorized for specified purposes.

Limit

Authorization is not blanket permission to rebate statutory or agreed wages or transfer ordinary business losses.

Labor Code § 226

California itemized wage statements and payroll inspection

Proposition

The statute requires specified wage-statement fields, record retention, and payroll-record inspection and copy rights.

Limit

An underlying wage issue does not automatically establish statement injury, knowing-and-intentional failure, or a statutory penalty.

Labor Code § 226.2

California piece-rate rest, recovery, and nonproductive-time compensation

Proposition

When piece-rate work occurs in a pay period, the statute requires separate compensation for rest/recovery and other nonproductive time and specifies rates, records, and statement fields.

Limit

The statute does not make every non-flagged minute nonproductive time or decide federal overtime, break provision, or the applicable local rate.

Labor Code § 226.7

California meal, rest, and recovery premium pay

Proposition

The statute prohibits required work during mandated meal, rest, or recovery periods and provides an additional hour at the regular rate of compensation when a required period is not provided.

Limit

Whether a period was required and provided, and the rate and derivative consequences, require separate factual and legal analysis.

Labor Code § 2751

California written commission contract

Proposition

Commission employment contracts must be written, state the computation and payment method, be provided in a signed copy, and have a signed receipt.

Limit

The requirement is commission-specific and does not substitute for separate piece-rate formula, wage-statement, or record obligations.

Labor Code § 2802

California necessary-business-expense reimbursement

Proposition

An employer must indemnify an employee for necessary expenditures or losses incurred in direct consequence of duties or obedience to employer directions.

Limit

Necessity, direction, amount, notice, and the adequacy of a reimbursement method remain fact-specific; the statute is distinct from wage-order tool rules.

Labor Code § 2804

California anti-waiver rule for expense indemnity

Proposition

A contract or agreement that purports to waive the protections of the expense-indemnity article is void.

Limit

The anti-waiver rule does not itself establish that a particular item was necessary or what amount was reasonably incurred.

Labor Code § 510

California daily and weekly overtime

Proposition

California generally requires daily and weekly overtime and double time at specified thresholds for nonexempt employees.

Limit

Coverage, exemptions, alternative schedules, workday/workweek definitions, and the regular-rate calculation remain separate questions.

Labor Code § 512

California meal-period timing and waiver framework

Proposition

Section 512 establishes first- and second-meal timing and limited mutual-waiver conditions tied to total shift length.

Limit

The statute does not by itself establish relief from duty, an on-duty-meal exception, premium rate, or whether a facial exception was employee choice.

Labor Code § 1174

California hours, wages, and piece records

Proposition

The statute requires records of daily hours, wages, and piece units or rates and protects an employee’s ability to keep a personal time record.

Limit

A record’s presence establishes recorded information, not necessarily complete controlled or suffered-permitted time.

Labor Code § 1194

California minimum-wage and overtime recovery

Proposition

An employee receiving less than the legal minimum wage or overtime may recover the unpaid balance with statutory fee treatment.

Limit

The provision does not decide hours worked, the applicable rate, exemption, amount, defenses, or any additional remedy.

Labor Code § 1197

California minimum wage requirement

Proposition

The minimum wage fixed by the commission or applicable law is the minimum wage paid to employees for covered hours.

Limit

The statute does not choose the highest local or industry floor or classify particular activities as hours worked.

Labor Code § 2775

California employee and independent-contractor classification

Proposition

Section 2775 supplies the ABC employee-classification framework subject to stated statutory exceptions and alternative tests.

Limit

A 1099, vendor entity, contract label, or business registration does not itself satisfy the test or decide joint employment.

IWC Wage Order 7

Mercantile Industry Wage Order

Proposition

Order 7 supplies mercantile-industry definitions and rules for hours, minimum wage, overtime, records, deductions, tools, uniforms, meals, and rests.

Limit

It applies only after classifying the business and work; standalone vehicle-repair businesses generally route to Order 9.

IWC Wage Order 9

Transportation Industry Wage Order

Proposition

Order 9 supplies parallel hours, pay, record, tool, meal, and rest rules for covered transportation-industry operations, including many standalone repair businesses.

Limit

The classification guide is fact-dependent; a dealer-connected repair operation generally routes to Order 7 instead.

California MW-2026

California Minimum Wage Order for 2026

Proposition

The official order sets the statewide minimum wage at $16.90 per hour effective January 1, 2026.

Limit

A higher local or industry-specific rate may apply, and the statewide figure does not select the rate for every location or date.

DIR wage-order guide

Which IWC Order? Classifications

Proposition

DIR’s guide routes dealer- or gas-station-connected vehicle repair to Order 7 and standalone repair garages generally to Order 9.

Limit

The guide is official guidance, not a safe harbor, and classification still depends on establishment and work facts.

Oman v. Delta Air Lines

Oman v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 9 Cal.5th 762 (2020)

Proposition

California’s no-borrowing analysis asks what unit the compensation contract promises to cover and whether work falls outside that unit without required pay.

Limit

The decision does not require a separate pay line for every duty where a lawful compensation contract genuinely covers each increment of work.

Vaquero v. Stoneledge

Vaquero v. Stoneledge Furniture LLC, 9 Cal.App.5th 98 (2017)

Proposition

An activity/commission formula and recoverable draw did not separately compensate rest periods under the plan at issue.

Limit

The holding turns on the actual formula and does not require a separate statement line for every ordinary hourly pay plan.

Peabody v. Time Warner Cable

Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., 59 Cal.4th 662 (2014)

Proposition

Under the general payday regime at issue, later-paid commissions could not be attributed backward to cure an earlier commission-exemption shortfall.

Limit

The opinion expressly notes the distinct vehicle-dealer provision in section 204.1; dealer timing requires its own branch.

Brinker v. Superior Court

Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.4th 1004 (2012)

Read the opinion text ↗

Proposition

An employer must relieve meal-period duty, relinquish control, permit an uninterrupted opportunity, and neither impede nor discourage the period.

Limit

The employer need not police a bona fide relieved meal, although known work remains compensable and the records may require explanation.

The Court no longer serves its former S166350 opinion PDF from the archive; the official case record and a stable public full-text copy are both provided.

Donohue v. AMN Services

Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, 11 Cal.5th 58 (2021)

Proposition

Meal punches may not be rounded, and records showing missed, short, or delayed meals create a rebuttable presumption that can be answered with evidence.

Limit

The opinion did not decide general rounding outside meals and does not make every facial exception an unrebuttable violation.

Augustus v. ABM

Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., 2 Cal.5th 257 (2016)

Proposition

A rest period requires relief from duties and employer control; mandatory on-call obligations are inconsistent with that rest.

Limit

Whether a dealership practice imposed control or a duty requires policy, communication, workload, and interruption evidence.

Ferra v. Loews Hollywood

Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, 11 Cal.5th 858 (2021)

Proposition

The section 226.7 regular rate of compensation uses the overtime regular-rate concept and includes nondiscretionary remuneration.

Limit

The correct rate still depends on classifying and allocating each pay component; it is not automatically the base hourly rate.

Naranjo v. Spectrum (2022)

Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc., 13 Cal.5th 93 (2022)

Proposition

Meal/rest premium pay is a wage that can trigger timely-payment and reporting duties when owed.

Limit

Derivative statement and waiting-time penalties retain their own injury and mental-state predicates.

Naranjo v. Spectrum (2024)

Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc., 15 Cal.5th 1056 (2024)

Proposition

A reasonable good-faith belief can defeat knowing-and-intentional wage-statement penalties and willful waiting-time penalties under the stated standards.

Limit

Good faith does not erase underlying wages, a statement defect, or every form of relief; each consequence remains a separate node.

Troester v. Starbucks

Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 5 Cal.5th 829 (2018)

Proposition

California did not adopt the federal de minimis doctrine to excuse regularly required and recordable minutes of post-clock work in the case.

Limit

The opinion left open truly minute or irregular time that is unreasonable to record and did not establish a universal minute threshold.

Frlekin v. Apple

Frlekin v. Apple Inc., 8 Cal.5th 1038 (2020)

Proposition

Mandatory onsite exit searches were hours worked under the wage-order control test given confinement, required procedure, discipline, and employer benefit.

Limit

The result turns on the degree of control, location, benefit, consequences, and actual procedure rather than any single label.

Huerta v. CSI Electrical

Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, Inc., 15 Cal.5th 908 (2024)

Proposition

Employer-mandated exit inspection time on controlled premises was compensable, while ordinary onsite driving was not automatically compensable on the facts addressed.

Limit

Construction-specific travel rules and CBA facts should not be mechanically exported to dealership operations.

Alvarado v. Dart Container

Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp. of California, 4 Cal.5th 542 (2018)

Proposition

The flat-sum attendance-type bonus at issue was allocated over nonovertime hours actually worked in the relevant pay period and received the specified overtime multiplier.

Limit

The holding is expressly limited to flat-sum bonuses; production, piece-rate, and commission pay require different methods, and the modification reserves the general pay-period/workweek question.

Alvarado modification

Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp. of California — order modifying opinion (Apr. 25, 2018)

Proposition

The court followed the parties’ use of the pay period as the calculation basis but expressly did not decide whether California regular rate is properly calculated by pay period or workweek.

Limit

The reservation does not displace the flat-sum-bonus divisor actually decided or authorize averaging federal workweeks.

Furry v. East Bay Publishing

Furry v. East Bay Publishing, LLC, 30 Cal.App.5th 1072 (2018)

Proposition

When required time records are missing, an employee may prove work by a just and reasonable inference and the employer bears the precision consequence.

Limit

Approximation still requires a reasonable evidentiary basis, and the opinion’s separate penalty reasoning was later limited by Naranjo.

Cochran v. Schwan’s

Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc., 228 Cal.App.4th 1137 (2014)

Proposition

When employees must use personal cell phones for work, section 2802 requires reimbursement of a reasonable percentage of the bill.

Limit

The decision does not set one universal percentage or decide whether every optional communication is a necessary business expense.