California Employment law requires employers to reimburse employees for all “necessary” expenses they incur while performing their jobs. VI. California Labor Code Section 2802 outlines employer responsibilities concerning business expense reimbursement. Is it a work-related expense? document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
How much reimbursement is enough? Labor Code Section 2802. Code § 2802 (a). Can the employer keep the reimbursed item? While the law is unclear and risk remains, it may be acceptable to reimburse home-bound employees only for a reasonable percentage of their home internet expenses, not the entire bill. The commissioner may issue a citation with financial penalties against an employer for violating California’s travel reimbursement obligations. She handles cases involving claims of wage and hour violations, harassment, retaliation, discrimination, breach of employment agreements, FMLA violations, and violations of California's Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), Family Rights Act (CFRA), and Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). At minimum, the accompanying documents should substantiate the purchase date, the item that was purchased, the purchase amount, and that the employee (or someone on the employee’s behalf) purchased the item. Under this approach, whether the employer is aware of the reimbursement only plays a role insofar as the reasonableness of the reimbursement. That said, if the employer prevents or discourages its employees from requesting reimbursements, the fact that it did not receive a reimbursement will not absolve it of its Section 2802 obligations. var myDate = new Date(parseInt(1606150736000));
Advertise With Us/ Lab. But, what about expenses that an employee would incur irrespective of whether they work remotely? 335 through 349.5] while the recovery of a penalty generally has a one-year statute of limitations. The law is intended to prevent employers from passing on their operating expenses to their employees. As a practical matter, however, it may be difficult to retrieve company property from an individual’s home absent legal intervention or prior agreement to incentivize the employee to return the property. Sponsored By : Podium
(a) An employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer, even though unlawful, unless the employee, at the time of obeying the directions, believed them to be unlawful. Read this complete California Code, Labor Code - LAB § 2802 on Westlaw FindLaw Codes are provided courtesy of Thomson Reuters Westlaw, the industry-leading online legal research system . Employers should not dismiss a reimbursement request merely because it arrives in an unusual form. Further, employers cannot contract around their Section 2802 reimbursement obligations. An easy scenario to start: An employer switches meetings to a videoconference platform and requires employees to upgrade to a premium account (which charges a fee). A Refresher on California Reimbursement Requirements in a COVID-19 World, Part Five of the COVID-19 Roadmap Series: Ensuring a Safe Workplace - COVID-19 Screening and Testing, Part Two of the COVID-19 Roadmap Series: Creating a COVID-19 Operations Infrastructure. Section 2802 only requires reimbursement of necessary and reasonable expenses incurred by the employee as a condition of continued employment. To view this content, please continue to Lexis Advance®. Commerce today takes many forms. California Labor Code section 2802 requires employers to indemnify their workers for expenses they necessarily incur in their duties. Experience with real estate transactions, real property taxati... NAULTY SCARICAMAZZA & MCDEVITT Mourn the Loss of Dear Colleague and Founding Partner Angelo L. Scaricamazza, Jr. Belluck & Fox welcomes Daniel Belzil to the firm. An employer can likely decline a request to pay for an employee’s dog food in summary fashion. 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