California Overtime Pay Violations

If you are a non-exempt employee in California and you worked more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week without the right premium pay, your employer owes you overtime. California’s overtime rules are stronger than federal law, and the right to that pay cannot be signed away. The Nourmand Law Firm, APC represents California workers in overtime pay disputes, from individual claims to wage-and-hour class actions against employers with company-wide violations.

Unpaid overtime rarely looks like an obvious refusal. It hides in salaried titles that should be hourly, in “off-the-clock” tasks before and after a shift, and in overtime calculated on a base wage that leaves out bonuses and shift differentials. If any of that sounds familiar, an employment attorney can tell you whether you are owed back pay. The firm offers free consultations to workers across the state, with particular focus on the warehouse corridors, logistics hubs, and Central Valley worksites where these violations cluster. Call 800-700-WAGE (9243) to find out what your employer may owe you.

Who Is Entitled to Overtime Pay in California?

Under California Labor Code § 510, non-exempt employees earn overtime at one-and-a-half times their regular rate for hours worked beyond eight in a workday, beyond 40 in a workweek, and for the first eight hours on the seventh consecutive day worked in a workweek. The right does not depend on whether the employer approved the overtime in advance. If you worked the hours and the employer knew or should have known, the hours are compensable.

Overtime is calculated on your regular rate of pay, not just your base hourly wage. The regular rate includes most non-discretionary bonuses, commissions, and shift premiums. An employer that pays a $20 base wage but routinely adds a production bonus cannot calculate overtime at $30 an hour; the bonus must be folded into the regular rate first. Shorting the regular rate is one of the most common and most overlooked overtime violations in California.

When Does Double Time Apply in California?

California is one of the few states that requires double time. Under Labor Code § 510, non-exempt employees must be paid twice their regular rate for hours worked beyond 12 in a single workday and for hours worked beyond eight on the seventh consecutive day of a workweek. A worker who puts in a 13-hour shift is owed straight time for eight hours, time-and-a-half for hours nine through 12, and double time for the thirteenth hour. Industry-specific rules under the Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders can modify these thresholds, which is why the correct analysis often depends on which Wage Order governs your occupation.

Are You Really Exempt? The Salary and Duties Tests

An exempt employee is one who satisfies both a salary test and a duties test. Misclassification — calling an employee exempt who does not actually qualify — is how many employers avoid paying overtime they legally owe.

The salary test sets a floor. To qualify for the executive, administrative, or professional exemptions, an employee must earn a fixed salary of at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work. With California’s minimum wage at $16.90 per hour in 2026, that threshold is $70,304 per year ($1,352 per week). An employee paid below that figure cannot be exempt under these white-collar categories, no matter what the job title says.

The duties test asks what the employee actually does. Under Labor Code § 515 and the Wage Orders, an exempt white-collar employee must spend more than half of working time on genuine executive, administrative, or professional work and must regularly exercise independent judgment and discretion. A “manager” who spends most of the shift doing the same line work as the people they supervise is often misclassified. An employer’s label is not binding; a worker who believes they were wrongly classified as exempt can challenge that classification and recover unpaid overtime. The firm also handles employee misclassification claims that turn on exactly this question.

What You Can Recover and How Long You Have

An employee who was denied overtime can recover the unpaid wages plus interest, and under Labor Code § 1194 can also recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. That fee-shifting provision is why many overtime cases proceed on contingency: the employer pays the fees if you prevail. Section 1194 also confirms that the right to overtime cannot be waived by agreement, so a contract in which you “agreed” to forgo overtime does not defeat your claim.

Timing matters. The statute of limitations on a California overtime claim is generally three years, and can reach four years when the claim is brought under the Unfair Competition Law. If your employment ended and the employer willfully failed to pay all wages owed, including unpaid overtime, waiting-time penalties under Labor Code § 203 can add up to 30 days of your daily wages on top of the unpaid amount. Pay records also become harder to reconstruct as time passes, so the sooner a claim is evaluated, the stronger the documentation tends to be.

To document an overtime claim, keep your own record of hours worked, save pay stubs and any timekeeping screenshots, and note any bonuses or differentials that should have raised your regular rate. Under Labor Code § 226, your employer is required to give you accurate, itemized wage statements; gaps or errors in those statements are often the first sign of a larger problem.

The Nourmand Law Firm, APC has represented California employees for more than 20 years and has recovered millions of dollars in wage-and-hour cases, including overtime class actions against employers whose violations affected entire workforces. If you suspect your overtime was shorted, call 800-700-WAGE (9243) or contact us online for a free, confidential consultation. No recovery, no fee. Se habla Español.