Analysis parameters

Potential premium exposure is the number of premium shifts multiplied by one hour of pay at the case’s average hourly rate. The meal side counts measured shifts — each shift with at least one potential meal violation. The rest side is estimated — a meal-derived rate applied to rest-qualifying shifts:

meal exposure = shifts with ≥ 1 potential meal violation × 1 hour × average hourly rate

estimated rest exposure = estimated rest premium shifts × 1 hour × average hourly rate

Plugged in at the worked example’s $21.00 average hourly rate: 120 meal premium shifts is $2,520.00 of potential meal exposure; an estimated 80 rest premium shifts adds an estimated $1,680.00. Each side is capped at one premium per shift — the two caps are separate — and the rate is a required input with no fallback.

The exposure headline presents these premiums and the penalty estimates as two tracks rather than one fused number. Total potential exposure is the sum of both, shown above a “Damages & premiums” subtotal — the meal and rest amounts above, which are wages under Naranjo v. Spectrum Security (2022) — and a “Penalties” subtotal — the § 226, § 203, and PAGA estimates. The split is not cosmetic: the two tracks rest on different legal theories and carry different limitations windows, so each subtotal states its own basis — the premium track a 4-year lookback, § 226 and PAGA each 1 year, § 203 a 3-year lookback tested on the inferred separation date rather than on a pay period. Where a window cannot be applied the subtotal says so rather than implying one, and where the windowed read is unavailable the penalties subtotal states that PAGA is not included.

Every per-employee dollar figure — the meal and rest premium amounts and the § 203 wage — uses a single average hourly rate for the whole population, set before the analysis runs and fixed for that run. The rate is a required precondition: an analysis cannot run until it is set, and no minimum-wage or other fallback is ever substituted.

One rate across the population is a disclosed simplification of the current scope. A future employee-census upload will supply per-employee rates that refine these figures; the Ferra “regular rate of compensation” adjustment — which can exceed the base hourly rate where nondiscretionary pay exists — is not computed, so figures use the entered rate as-is. Every hour is priced at that one rate as straight time: overtime and double time are not identified or valued anywhere in the analysis, so no figure carries a premium multiplier.

The premium buffer is a setting of the analysis, not a view control: it is fixed when the analysis runs, and every figure the run reports is already net of it. The default is 0. Set to a whole number N, it subtracts N from the premium count of each (employee, pay period) — meal premiums first, any remainder against the rest estimate — never below zero. It expresses one assumption: that N premium shifts per pay period were already paid or are not in dispute.

Because counts floor at zero the effect is not linear, and that is why the offset is applied at the (employee, pay period) grain rather than to a total. A pay period with exactly one premium shift drops to zero and out of the deficient-pay-period count; one with five drops to four and remains deficient. The same offset applied to a case total gives a different figure. Netted counts flow through everything downstream from that grain, never scaled: into the meal and rest premium dollars, and — through the net MEAL count alone — into the § 226 and PAGA deficient-pay-period counts.

A pay period is deficient when a whole net meal premium remains after the offset. Changing the buffer produces a second analysis to compare against the first; it does not restate the figures of a run already made.