Following up on a request in May asking the Oregon Supreme Court to grant a review of a lower court’s ruling on meal breaks that is wrongly and harmfully punishing businesses in the state, NFIB yesterday filed another legal brief asking the state’s highest court to reverse the Athena v. Pelican Brewing Company decision made by the Court of Appeals.
“The Court of Appeals’ ruling in Athena significantly expands employer liability beyond the intent of Oregon’s meal-period regulations and statutory framework,” said Anthony Smith, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in Oregon. “We’re urging the Oregon Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s decision and restore workable ground rules for Oregon workplaces.”
According to NFIB’s amici curiae brief filed yesterday in partnership with Oregon Business & Industry, Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
“As it sits today, the Court of Appeals’ decision in Athena, coupled with its prior decisions interpreting the Bureau of Labor and Industries’ (‘BOLI’) meal-period rule, threatens the ability of Oregon businesses to gainfully employ Oregonians. Employees who periodically return from their meal breaks a minute early stand to create multi-million-dollar liabilities for their employers—even when the employer directed the employee to take, and provided the time needed for, the full 30-minute break. That is not a hypothetical risk. It is the direct and predictable result of a line of Court of Appeals decisions that strain, and ultimately break from, common sense and settled interpretive norms.”
