Is My Time-card Correct?

It is not uncommon, especially for employees that work for large companies, to discover their pay stubs seem incorrect because the the amount of time reflected for time worked is incorrect.

Depending on how incorrect the pay stub appears, the employer may still be following California law.

This is illustrated by a case involving See's Candies (See’s Candy Shops v. Superior Court) California employees of See's Candies noticed their time-cards failed to reflect their exact punch in and punch out times. Instead, their time was rounded to the nearest 5 minutes, or the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. For example, a punch out at 5:02 p.m. would be rounded down to 5:00 p.m., but a punch out at 5:04 p.m. would be rounded up to 5:06 p.m. In the See's case, the court noted the evidence was undisputed that this rounding could increase or decrease the total work time in any given day depending which tenth of an hour the punch was closest to.

See's Candies argued rounding time clock punches because paychecks were easier to administrate.

Based on statistics in this case and others, the court noted that more often than not the rounding afforded employees more time than less time. Additionally, it determined that over time the rounding up or down cancelled each other out and employees were compensated for all time worked.

California courts have continually ruled rounding time in such a manner is legal as long as it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.

For more information concerning potential time-card violations or any other employment issue, please feel free to contact Christopher Taylor for a no-cost consultation.