Dive Brief:

• The California Supreme Court ruled that certain workers in retail environments are entitled chairs in the workplace, according to the Los Angeles Times.

• Specifically, in a class-action lawsuit against pharmacy chain CVS, the court unanimously clarified labor law that will likely spur employers to offer some workers an optional workplace chair. The case is only one of dozens of class actions filed in the state during the last several years against employers who required workers to stand, the Times reports.

• While the California class action decision directly impacts tens of thousands of workers in California, the ruling will affect millions of employees, Michael Rubin, who represented workers in the cases, told the Times, which noted that retail employers will be most affected by the decision.

Dive Insight:

“There is no principled reason for denying an employee a seat when he spends a substantial part of his workday at a single location performing tasks that could reasonably be done while seated, merely because his job duties include other tasks that must be done standing,” Justice Carol A. Corrigan wrote for the court, according to the Times.

The court's decision noted that whether a seat is needed depends on “the totality of the circumstances,” including whether a task can be performed from a chair, whether seating the worker would interfere with job performance and whether the physical layout of the work space is conducive to seating, the court wrote.

UC Hastings professor Reuel Schiller, an expert in employment law, said the decision appeared to be a win for workers, adding that employers can't rely on it being more "professional" for a workers to stand if it's the lone reason for a policy.