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April 29, 2026 · Benjamin J. Treger
What to Do While Camp v. Home Depot Is Pending
Rounding is the practice of treating a clock punch as if it occurred at a fixed increment, like the nearest quarter hour, instead of the exact minute the employee clocked in or out. An employee clocks in at 7:53 a.m. and the system records 8:00 a.m. Another employee clocks in at 8:07 a.m. and the system also records 8:00 a.m. The first employee lost seven paid minutes. The second was paid for seven minutes she did not work.
That symmetry was the point. For a decade, California law tolerated rounding because it cut both ways: some punches gained time, some lost time, and across the workforce the gains and losses were supposed to cancel. In 2022, a Court of Appeal held that this logic no longer applies when the employer can record every minute exactly. The California Supreme Court agreed to weigh in, and that decision is still pending.
If your timekeeping system records clock punches to the exact minute and you then round those punches for payroll, this post applies to you. If your system does not round at all, you are likely already safe; the rest of this post explains why.
For a decade, California followed the federal rule. See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court, 210 Cal. App. 4th 889 (2012), held that an employer may use a rounding policy if it is (1) facially neutral, meaning it rounds both for and against the employee, and (2) used in a way that does not, over time, fail to pay employees for all the time they actually work.
Both prongs mattered. A policy that rounded only against the employee was not neutral on its face. A policy that rounded both directions but in practice produced systemic underpayment, because shift schedules pushed most punches to one side of the midpoint, was not neutral as applied. Done right, a See’s Candy-compliant program produced an aggregate net surplus of paid hours across the workforce. The Ninth Circuit applied the same analysis under California law in Corbin v. Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership, 821 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir. 2016), and the Second District extended it in AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v. Superior Court, 24 Cal. App. 5th 1014 (2018).
Two California Supreme Court decisions then changed the environment without directly overruling See’s Candy. In Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 5 Cal. 5th 829 (2018), the Court held that California does not recognize the federal de minimis doctrine in wage cases; small but regularly recurring increments of off-the-clock work are compensable. In Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, 11 Cal. 5th 58 (2021), the Court held that rounding is impermissible for meal-period punches.
Neither decision squarely addressed shift rounding. Both pointed in the same direction: California is unwilling to tolerate small underpayments when the employer has the technology to avoid them.
The Sixth District extended that logic in Camp v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 84 Cal. App. 5th 638 (2022). Home Depot’s Kronos system captured every minute its employees worked. Its payroll system rounded total daily worktime to the nearest quarter hour. Over four-and-a-half years, the named plaintiff lost roughly 7.83 hours of pay. Home Depot pointed to evidence that, across the workforce as a whole, employees gained more rounded minutes than they lost. The trial court granted summary judgment under See’s Candy.
The Court of Appeal reversed. Where the employer can capture, and has captured, the exact number of minutes an employee worked, the court held, the employer must pay for all of those minutes. Aggregate neutrality across the workforce is not enough when the technology eliminates any practical reason to round in the first place. The court invited the California Supreme Court to revisit See’s Candy.
The California Supreme Court granted review on February 1, 2023 (Case No. S277518). Briefing closed in late 2023, and as of this writing, the case remains on the Court’s pending civil docket with no opinion issued. While review is pending, Camp may be cited only for its persuasive value and to establish a conflict in authority, which means a defense built on See’s Candy can be met head-on with a plaintiff’s reliance on Camp.
Three plausible outcomes:
| Outcome | What it means | What to do today |
|---|---|---|
| Narrow affirmance (most likely) | Rounding fails when the employer captures exact time and the policy underpays a particular employee. | Eliminate rounding wherever exact capture exists. |
| Broad affirmance | Rounding is categorically suspect whenever exact capture is feasible. | Eliminate rounding wherever feasible. |
| Reversal (least likely) | Workforce-wide neutrality is enough; California aligns with the federal rule. | Audit aggregate neutrality and document the result. |
Whichever way the Court goes, the holding is likely to apply retroactively, which is the default for judicial decisions in California. That makes look-back exposure under a noncompliant rounding program meaningful.
For most California employers, the practical answer is the same regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in Camp. If your system can capture every minute, pay for every minute. The cost of paying every minute is almost always lower than the cost of defending a class action over a quarter-hour rounding policy.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult with a qualified employment attorney about your specific situation.