In Serrano v. Aerotek, Inc., the Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court decision in holding that a temporary staffing agency satisfied its obligation under Section 226.7 of the Labor Code to provide meal breaks. The Court reasoned that Aerotek provided employees with a handbook that set forth the policies that applied to temporary employees on assignments, including information regarding adequate meal breaks, and instructed employees to alert Aerotek immediately if their current workplace assignment interfered with their ability to take meal breaks. Here, Plaintiff acknowledged that she received the handbook on multiple occasions and she never reported a meal break violation to Aerotek. In addition, the Court pointed out that Aerotek had a contract with their client requiring them to comply with all applicable laws and that previous case law has established that an employer is not required to police meal breaks. Furthermore, mere knowledge of employees working through meal breaks is not enough to subject an employer to liability. Therefore, here, Aerotek’s motion for summary judgment was properly granted because Plaintiff conceded that no action on the part of Aerotek prevented her from taking meal breaks.

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