Workers who can sit on the job are entitled to chairs, court says

Employees who can do their jobs while seated are entitled to a place to sit, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. Employees who can do their jobs while seated are entitled to a place to sit, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. Photo: Trevor Williams, Getty Images Photo: Trevor Williams, Getty Images Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Workers who can sit on the job are entitled to chairs, court says 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Employees who can do their jobs while seated are entitled to a place to sit, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The simple and unanimous conclusion is likely to resolve numerous lawsuits in which employers, led by CVS Pharmacy and JP Morgan Chase Bank, argued that they had no obligation to provide seats to employees if a majority of their workdays consisted of tasks that could be performed only while standing, like stocking shelves.

The court said each job should be evaluated on its own. But “if the tasks being performed at a given location reasonably permit sitting, and provision of a seat would not interfere with performance of any other tasks that may require standing, a seat is called for,” the justices said.

The goal of state law, as interpreted by wage regulations adopted in 2001 by the Industrial Welfare Commission, “has always been employee protection,” Justice Carol Corrigan said in the 7-0 ruling.

The court interpreted California law at the request of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which is considering employee suits against CVS, Chase Bank and Walmart. The ruling should resolve those suits and more than a dozen others in the state, said Michael Rubin, a lawyer for the employees.

More fundamentally, he said, the decision will allow cash-register clerks, bank tellers and many other categories of employees to be seated for at least part of their workdays.

“Employers in the retail industry, the banking industry and anywhere else where there is pervasive noncompliance will start giving seats to their employees, a relatively low-cost fix,” Rubin said. “They’re not required to sit, but they will no longer be required to stand.”

San Francisco attorney Steve Hirschfeld, who represents employers but was not involved in the case, said he would advise his clients to “take a look at jobs they have, whether it’s reasonably likely a person will have to sit down, and if so, they’re going to have to provide a chair.” Whatever expenses are involved would be cheaper than a lawsuit, he said.

The first version of the state law, passed in 1911, required merchants to provide “suitable seats” for female employees. It was expanded to all employees in the 1970s and led to the 2001 regulations saying employers must provide seating “when the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats.”

But the Industrial Welfare Commission rarely enforced the regulations, and the issue instead reached the courts in employee lawsuits authorized by a 2004 state law.

Employers then argued that the commission’s nonenforcement supported their position that they were entitled to assess an employee’s job as a whole and decide whether it was more suited for standing than sitting.

But Corrigan said the state law is not an “all-or-nothing” proposition and instead entitles employees to be seated when they can do any substantial portion of their work sitting down — and also during any “lulls” in standing-up tasks.

The case is Kilby vs. CVS Pharmacy, S215614.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko