Court allows suit challenging rules on driver breaks.

DON'T eat while you drive.

An appellate court has sided with a West Los Angeles concrete company in a suit fried against the state of California for requiting 30-minute meal periods for drivers of ready-mix concrete trucks.

Westside Concrete Co. Inc. sued the state's Industrial Welfare Commission, which makes wage orders, and the Department of Industrial Relations' division of labor standards enforcement, which interprets and enforces labor laws.

The litigation grew out of an October 2000 decision by the commission to require employers who do not provide 30-minute meal breaks to compensate workers with an hour's pay as a penalty. The following year, the division of labor standards enforcement issued opinion letters that questioned whether employers in the ready-mix concrete industry could provide on-duty meal periods without damaging the concrete. Those opinion letters generally apply to specific cases and are not seen as coveting an entire industry.

In its suit, Westside claimed that drivers of ready-mix concrete trucks cannot leave in mid-pour to take an uninterrupted lunch break, said its lawyer, Steve Atkinson, a partner at Atkinson Andelson Loya Ruud & Rome PC.

"In the truck-driving industry, it's been common for years for guys to eat while they drive, particularly in L.A. where there are lots of stops," he said. Taking breaks "is not realistic in those situations where a guy, can just leave his truck and trailer on the side of the road and not pay attention to it for 30 minutes.'

Westside sued in December 2002 claiming the division's opinion letters should be applied to the industry as a whole, rather than a specific company.

Last year, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge throw out the case, but a 2nd Appellate District panel reversed the ruling and sent the case to trial in L.A.

"We're confident we'll prevail on all the issues at the trial court in Los Angeles once all the facts are put to light," she said.