California
California meal break rules for field crews
The hardest state in the country to get right, and the one where getting it wrong is most expensive. California layers daily overtime, double time, a seventh-day premium, meal and rest periods and a split-shift premium on top of the federal weekly rule, and it lets employees enforce most of it themselves.
What the law requires
An unpaid 30-minute meal period for a work period of more than 5 hours, and a second for more than 10 hours.
What it means on a crew
The threshold is exclusive - "more than five hours" - so a shift of exactly 5.0 hours owes nothing. States disagree on this and it is a common source of error; Oregon and Nevada are inclusive.
What Punchless does
The meal is detected from the GPS pattern rather than depending on someone remembering to clock out for lunch, and the thresholds are asserted by test at the boundary.
Every rule we enforce is published with the statute behind it and the test that checks it, so this is a claim you can verify rather than take on faith.
Where we fall short
We report a missed meal period but do not price it. Labor Code 226.7 owes an hour of pay at the regular rate of compensation, and Ferra v. Loews (2021) 11 Cal.5th 858 held that rate includes nondiscretionary bonuses - which needs a bonus table we do not have.
If you are relying on this, ask us before you buy. We would rather lose the sale than have you find out at a hearing.
Other California rules
Verified against primary sources on August 3, 2026. Statutes and wage orders change, and some of this is genuinely unsettled - re-check the source before relying on it. Punchless is not a law firm and this is not legal advice.