Three individuals worked as security guards or field supervisors for Securitas Security Services USA, which is based in the Southern California community of Westlake Village. They sometimes worked night shifts that began one calendar day and ended the next, sometimes in excess of 8 hours. Their schedules and the number of hours worked varied somewhat from day to day.

Securitas had established the workday as beginning at midnight and ending the following midnight. As a result, the employees’ shifts occasionally were divided between 2 workdays. The three employees filed a class action complaint against Securitas, alleging that Securitas didn’t pay mandatory split-shift pay.

Before trial, Securitas asked the trial court to dismiss the employees’ split-shift pay claim. Securitas argued that an uninterrupted work shift that spans midnight and falls in 2 calendar days and 2 workdays is not a split shift. It contended that a split shift doesn’t occur if an employee ends such an overnight shift in the morning and begins another overnight shift late in the evening of the same workday.

The employees claimed that a split shift occurs whenever an employee works 2 nonconsecutive periods in the same workday—such as when a shift begins on one day and ends on another and the employee subsequently returns to work several hours later in the second workday. They further asserted that Securitas had failed to provide split-shift pay not only when the employees worked shifts spanning midnight on consecutive days but also when the employees worked nonconsecutive periods in the same workday without working through midnight.

The trial court concluded that a split shift, as defined in the California Wage Orders, occurs whenever an employee works two nonconsecutive periods of time in the same workday. Securitas asked the Court of Appeals to reconsider the trial court’s ruling.

Court of Appeals Defines ‘Work Schedule’

Under state law, employees who are required to work a split shift are entitled to an additional hour of wages. The Wage Orders generally define a “split shift” as a “work schedule” that “is interrupted by non-paid non-working periods established by the employer, other than bona fide rest or meal breaks.”

Neither the Wage Orders nor the California Labor Code defines “work schedule,” so the Court of Appeals devised its own definition./1 It determined that the term refers to an employee’s designated working hours or periods of work, regardless of the “workday” established by the employer.

Therefore, according to the court, a split shift occurs only when an employee’s designated working hours are interrupted by one or more unpaid, nonworking periods established by the employer that are not bona fide rest or meal periods. That a single continuous shift happens to begin during one “workday” and end the next doesn’t make it a split shift, the court found.

That means that employees who work uninterrupted overnight shifts on consecutive days—like the Securitas employees—don’t work a split shift and aren’t entitled to split-shift pay.

The Court of Appeals supported its conclusion by citing the dual functions of split-shift pay—compensating employees and shaping employer conduct. It explained that the split-shift pay requirement encourages proper notice and scheduling consistent with maximum hours. Scheduling employees for uninterrupted overnight shifts on consecutive days doesn’t run counter to these concerns. Securitas Security Services v. Superior Court (Holland), Calif. Court of Appeals (Dist. 2) No. B227950, (2011).

Practice Tip: Employees who work consecutive overnight shifts that aren’t interrupted by unpaid, nonworking periods within the shifts aren’t entitled to split-shift pay. The interruption between the shifts doesn’t make them split shifts.