The panel filed (1) an order replacing the opinion filed on November 25, 2025, with an amended opinion, and denying Appellees’ petition for panel rehearing as moot; and (2) an amended opinion reversing in part and affirming in part the district court’s judgment in a wage-and-hour case brought by plaintiffs against their former employer, Jack in the Box (JITB), on behalf of themselves and a class of other former employees.

Plaintiffs challenged three JITB policies: JITB over-deducted its employees’ wages for the Workers’ Benefit Fund (WBF), JITB did not pay workers for interrupted meal periods more than 20 minutes long, and JITB deducted employees’ pay for non-slip shoes.

Plaintiffs prevailed on the WBF claims, and JITB defeated the unpaid break and shoe claims. JITB appealed, and plaintiffs cross-appealed. The panel reversed the district court’s judgment on the WBF, the shoe claims, and the unpaid break claims, and remanded.

Addressing JITB’s appeal concerning the WBF over-deductions, the panel held that the district court erred in finding, at summary judgment, that JITB’s over-deductions were willful such that JITB owed penalty wages, and remanded for a trial on willfulness. To help the district court and the parties retry the case, the panel also provided guidance on a penalty wage theory the parties call “Late Final Pay 1”—a claim for penalty wages for WBF over-deductions but not minimum wage or overtime violations—and the constitutional limits on penalty wages.

Next, the panel held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exclude the class members whose mailed notices were undeliverable, nor did the district court err in refusing to reduce the prejudgment interest for plaintiffs’ alleged delays. However, on remand, the district court will have to recalculate the prejudgment interest in light of the holding on willfulness.

Addressing plaintiffs’ cross-appeal, the panel held that it had jurisdiction. Because the district court granted JITB’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) motion, the 30-day deadline of Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A) ran from the amended judgment, and the cross-appeal was timely.

The panel held that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to certify the unpaid break class. The parties disputed whether an employer was always liable when it cut meal breaks short, and if liable whether the remedy was wages for the length of the shortened break. In Maza v. Waterford Operations, LLC, 300 Or. App. 471 (2019), the Oregon Court of Appeals held that Oregon employers had to pay for shortened meal breaks. The panel held that the district court attempted to duck Maza, but its reasoning was not persuasive. The district court found that Maza applied only prospectively, but Maza governs meal breaks that occurred before Maza was decided. Maza’s holding that Oregon employers must enforce meal breaks applied before June 2010. Consistent with Maza, employers must pay for shortened meal breaks even before June 2010 pursuant to the reasoning in Athena v. Pelican Brewing Co., 345 Or. App. 172 (2025). The panel concluded that JITB was required to pay for the full 30 minutes of shortened meal periods pursuant to OAR § 839-020-0050 before June 2010. Accordingly, the panel reversed the district court’s denial of class certification and remanded.

The district court erred in granting JITB’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on the named Plaintiffs’ individual unpaid break claims for the same reason that it erred in denying class certification for the pre-June 2010 class claims.

The panel reversed the district court’s judgment on the shoe claims. The panel held that the district court erred in granting partial summary judgment to JITB on its affirmative defense that the shoe deductions were for its employees’ benefit, and reversed and remanded so a jury can decide whether the shoe requirement was for the employees’ benefit. The panel also remanded so the district court can reconsider whether to certify the shoe class in light of the panel’s decision.

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/04/20/23-2522.pdf