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Lab. Code, § 203 · Article 1. General Occupations

Lab. Code, § 203

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) If an employer willfully fails to pay, without abatement or reduction, in accordance with Sections 201, 201.3, 201.5, 201.6, 201.8, 201.9, 202, and 205.5, any wages of an employee who is discharged or who quits, the wages of the employee shall continue as a penalty from the due date thereof at the same rate until paid or until an action therefor is commenced; but the wages shall not continue for more than 30 days. An employee who secretes or absents themselves to avoid payment to them, or who refuses to receive the payment when fully tendered to them, including any penalty then accrued under this section, is not entitled to any benefit under this section for the time during which the employee so avoids payment.

(b) Suit may be filed for these penalties at any time before the expiration of the statute of limitations on an action for the wages from which the penalties arise.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 700, Sec. 2.5. (SB 286) Effective January 1, 2020.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=203.
Text hash
sha256 5a2f9ee305fa6feb3b06de46fa38e79a7891164efb8181edf3ba7abf6ede4470
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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Labor Code

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Labor Code

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