Iafeta Mauia v. Petrochem Insulation, Inc.

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
IAFETA MAUIA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
PETROCHEM INSULATION, INC.,
Defendant-Appellant.
No. 20-15810
D.C. No.
3:18-cv-01815-TSH
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Thomas S. Hixson, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted March 18, 2021
San Francisco, California
Filed July 20, 2021
Before: Mary H. Murguia and Morgan Christen, Circuit
Judges, and Barbara M. G. Lynn,* Chief District Judge.
Opinion by Judge Christen
* The Honorable Barbara M. G. Lynn, Chief United States District
Judge for the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation.

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 2
SUMMARY**
Labor Law
The panel reversed the district court’s order denying the
motion of defendant Petrochem Insulation, Inc., to dismiss
Iafeta Mauia’s claims that Petrochem violated California’s
wage and hour laws by failing to provide adequate meal and
rest periods to workers on oil platforms off the coast of
California.
The panel held that pursuant to the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act, all law on the Outer Continental Shelf is
federal, and state law is adopted only to the extent it is
applicable and not inconsistent with federal law. Under
Parker Drilling Mgmt. Servs. v. Newton, 139 S. Ct. 1881
(2019), there must be a gap in federal law before state law
will apply on the Outer Continental Shelf. The panel
concluded that because the Fair Labor Standards Act
addresses meal and rest periods, there was no gap in the
applicable federal law.
** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 3
COUNSEL
Kent J. Sprinkle (argued), Teresa W. Ghali, and Rachel L.
Capler, CDF Labor Law LLP, San Diego, California, for
Defendant-Appellant.
Michael A. Strauss (argued), Aris E. Karakalos, and Andrew
C. Ellison, Strauss & Strauss, Ojai, California, for Plaintiff-
Appellee.
OPINION
CHRISTEN, Circuit Judge:
Petrochem Insulation, Inc. (Petrochem) appeals the
district court’s order denying its motion to dismiss Iafeta
Mauia’s claims alleging violations of California’s wage and
hour laws. Mauia alleged that Petrochem failed to provide
adequate meal and rest periods to workers on oil platforms off
the coast of California. Pursuant to the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq., all law
on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) is federal; state law is
adopted on the OCS only to the extent it is applicable and not
inconsistent with federal law. 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(2)(A).
The Supreme Court explained in Parker Drilling
Management Services v. Newton that there must be a gap in
federal law before state law will apply on the OCS. 139 S.
Ct. 1881, 1892 (2019). Because federal law addresses meal
and rest periods, we conclude there is no gap in the applicable
federal law. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s
order denying Petrochem’s motion to dismiss Mauia’s state-
law claims.

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 4
I
Petrochem provides services to drilling operations located
off the coast of California on the OCS. Until 2016,
Petrochem employed Mauia as an Onsite Project
Manager/Superintendent for scaffolding projects on offshore
oil platforms. Mauia was an hourly employee and worked
shifts of twelve hours or more. He alleged that Petrochem
provided only one meal period after the start of the sixth hour
of his shifts, and only two rest periods per twelve-hour shift.
Mauia’s operative complaint alleged that Petrochem’s
meal- and rest-period practices violated California law.
Specifically, Mauia alleged that by providing only one meal
period that began after the sixth hour of work, Petrochem
violated § 512 of the California Labor Code, which mandates
that “[a]n employer shall not employ an employee for a work
period of more than five hours per day without providing the
employee with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes.”
Cal. Lab. Code § 512(a); see 8 Cal. Code Regs.
§ 11160(10)(A). California also requires that “[a]n employer
shall not employ an employee for a work period of more than
10 hours per day without providing the employee with a
second meal period of not less than 30 minutes.” Cal. Lab.
Code § 512(a); see 8 Cal. Code Regs. § 11160(10)(B). Mauia
sought “meal period premium wages” pursuant to state law in
an amount to be determined. See Cal. Lab. Code § 226.7.
Mauia also alleged that Petrochem violated California law
by providing only two rest breaks during his twelve-hour
shifts. See 8 Cal. Code Regs. § 11160(11)(A) (requiring
employers to “authorize and permit all employees to take rest
periods . . . daily at the rate of ten (10) minutes net rest time
for every four (4) hours worked”). As with his meal-period

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 5
claim, Mauia sought back-pay pursuant to Cal. Lab. Code
§ 226.7 for the failure to provide rest periods. Finally, Mauia
alleged that Petrochem’s failure to provide meal and rest
periods as required by California law amounted to unfair
business practices, and he sought disgorgement and
restitution.1 See Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 et seq.
Petrochem moved to dismiss Mauia’s state-law claims
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Its
motion argued that California wage and hour laws are
inapplicable on the OCS because the Fair Labor Standards
Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., addresses meal and rest
periods, leaving no gap for California law to fill. See Parker
Drilling, 139 S. Ct. at 1891. Petrochem also urged the district
court to dismiss Mauia’s unfair competition claim because it
was derivative of, and dependent upon, the viability of
Mauia’s meal-and rest-period claims.
The district court denied Petrochem’s motion to dismiss.
It reasoned that neither the FLSA nor its implementing
regulations address meal or rest periods because the federal
regulations only concern how and when meal and rest breaks
must be compensated as work time; they do not require that
employers provide meal and rest breaks. Accordingly, the
district court ruled that federal law does not address Mauia’s
claims, and concluded that California’s meal- and rest-break
laws were adopted as surrogate federal law for workers on
OCS drilling platforms. For the same reasons, the court ruled
that Mauia’s derivative unfair competition claim survived
Petrochem’s motion to dismiss.
1 The district court dismissed some of Mauia’s other claims as
untimely or because they were resolved by Parker Drilling. Those claims
are not on appeal.

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The district court recognized that trial courts in our circuit
have split on this issue, and certified its order for
interlocutory review. A motions panel of our court granted
Petrochem’s petition for permission to appeal. We have
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), and we reverse
the district court’s judgment.
II
We review de novo a district court’s order denying a Rule
12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Fortyune v. City of Lomita,
766 F.3d 1098, 1101 (9th Cir. 2014). Our review is limited
to the complaint, materials incorporated by reference into the
complaint, and matters of which we may take judicial notice.
Karasek v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 956 F.3d 1093, 1104 (9th
Cir. 2020). We accept as true all well-pleaded factual
allegations and construe them in the light most favorable to
the non-moving party. Id. “A complaint will not survive a
motion to dismiss unless it ‘contain[s] sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)).
III
The OCSLA, 43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq., extends “[t]he
Constitution and laws and civil and political jurisdiction of
the United States” to the OCS “to the same extent as if the
[OCS] were an area of exclusive Federal jurisdiction located
within a State.” 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(1)(A). The OCSLA
provides:
(2)(A) To the extent that they are applicable
and not inconsistent with this subchapter or

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 7
with other Federal laws and regulations of the
Secretary now in effect or hereafter adopted,
the civil and criminal laws of each adjacent
State, now in effect or hereafter adopted,
amended, or repealed are declared to be the
law of the United States for that portion of the
subsoil and seabed of the outer Continental
Shelf, and artificial islands and fixed
structures erected thereon, which would be
within the area of the State if its boundaries
were extended seaward to the outer margin of
the outer Continental Shelf . . . . All such
applicable laws shall be administered and
enforced by the appropriate officers and
courts of the United States.
Id. § 1331(a)(2)(A). The Supreme Court has explained that
“all law on the OCS is federal law, administered by federal
officials.” Parker Drilling, 139 S. Ct. at 1886. “The OCSLA
denies States any interest in or jurisdiction over the OCS, and
it deems the adjacent State’s laws to be federal law ‘[t]o the
extent that they are applicable and not inconsistent with’
other federal law.” Id. (quoting 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(2)(A)).
In Parker Drilling, the Supreme Court resolved a circuit
split concerning how to determine whether a state law is
“applicable and not inconsistent with . . . Federal law[]”
within the meaning of the OCSLA. 43 U.S.C.
§ 1333(a)(2)(A); Parker Drilling, 139 S. Ct. at 1886–87. The
Fifth Circuit had interpreted the OCSLA to require that
“‘applicable’ be read in terms of necessity—necessity to fill
a significant void or gap” in federal law. Cont’l Oil Co. v.
London Steam-Ship Owners’ Mut. Ins. Ass’n, 417 F.2d 1030,
1036 (5th Cir. 1969). Our court had interpreted the OSCLA

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by giving “applicable” its plain and ordinary meaning. See
Newton v. Parker Drilling Mgmt. Servs., Ltd., 881 F.3d 1078,
1090 (9th Cir. 2018), vacated and remanded by Parker
Drilling, 139 S. Ct. 1881. In Newton, we held that an
adjacent state’s law was “applicable” for purposes of the
OSCLA when it “pertained to the subject matter at hand.” Id.
(citing Applicable, Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of
the English Language (1958); Applicable, Webster’s New
World Dictionary of the American Language (1972)). We
also gave “inconsistent” its ordinary meaning, and held that
“applicable” state laws are “inconsistent” with federal law
when they are “mutually ‘incompatible, incongruous, or
inharmonious.’” Id. at 1093 (alteration omitted) (quoting
Ecological Rights Found. v. Pac. Gas & Elec. Co., 874 F.3d
1083, 1095 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Webster’s Third New
Int’l Dictionary (1971))).
Much like Mauia, Newton worked on oil platforms off the
coast of California. Id. at 1082. He worked fourteen-day
shifts, with each day consisting of twelve hours on duty and
twelve hours on standby. Id. Though Newton was paid “well
above California and federal minimum wage,” he was not
paid for his standby time. Id. We reasoned in Newton that
California’s minimum-wage and standby-time laws were
applicable to the parties’ dispute, and that “the determinative
question in Newton’s case [was] . . . whether California wage
and hour laws are ‘inconsistent with’ existing federal law.”
Id. at 1093 (quoting 43 U.S.C. § 1333(a)(2)(A)). Because
“the FLSA’s savings clause expressly provides that states are
free to adopt more protective standards for minimum wages
or maximum hours,” we held that California’s wage-and-hour
laws were not inconsistent with federal law, and therefore
applied on the OCS. Id. at 1097–99.

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 9
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve these
competing interpretations of the OCSLA. Parker Drilling,
139 S. Ct. at 1886–87. Parker Drilling urged the Supreme
Court to adopt the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation, but Newton
argued “[i]n essence, . . . that state law is ‘inconsistent’ [with
federal law] only if it would be pre-empted under [] ordinary
pre-emption principles.” Id. at 1888. The Court agreed with
Parker Drilling because a “pre-emption analysis is applicable
only where the overlapping, dual jurisdiction of the Federal
and State Governments makes it necessary to decide which
law takes precedence.” Id. at 1889. The Supreme Court
explained that because the OCS was never part of a state, the
“ordinary question in pre-emption cases”—whether a conflict
exists between federal and state law—is not present on the
OCS. Id. Instead, the Court reasoned that “like the generally
applicable enclave rule, the OCSLA sought to make all OCS
law federal yet also ‘provide a sufficiently detailed legal
framework to govern life’ on the OCS.” Id. at 1890 (quoting
Shell Oil Co. v. Iowa Dep’t of Revenue, 488 U.S. 19, 27
(1988)). “The text and context of the OCSLA therefore
suggest that state law is not adopted to govern the OCS where
federal law is on point,” and “the OCSLA . . . does not adopt
state law ‘where there is no gap to fill.’” Id. at 1891 (quoting
Lewis v. United States, 523 U.S. 155, 163 (1998)).
Parker Drilling concluded that “the question is whether
federal law has already addressed the relevant issue; if so,
state law addressing the same issue would necessarily be
inconsistent with existing federal law and cannot be adopted
as surrogate federal law. Put another way, to the extent
federal law applies to a particular issue, state law is
inapplicable.” Id. at 1899. Applying this rule to Newton’s
claims, the Court observed that the FLSA provides a
minimum wage and addresses standby time insofar as it

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 10
provides that standby time is not work time that must be
compensated. Id. at 1893. The Court concluded: (1) there
was no gap in federal law to fill; (2) California law governing
minimum wage and standby time did not apply; and
(3) Newton’s state-law claims necessarily failed. Id.
IV
As Parker Drilling instructs, to resolve Mauia’s claims
we begin by asking “whether federal law has already
addressed” the relevant issue. Id. Mauia’s meal- and rest-
period claims rely on his allegations that Petrochem provided
only one meal break after the beginning of the sixth hour of
work, and only two rest breaks during his twelve-hour shifts.
Mauia contends that California law applies, and that
Petrochem’s practices violate California law. We disagree.
Because the FLSA addresses meal and rest periods, we
conclude that California’s meal- and rest-period laws are not
adopted as surrogate federal law on the OCS.
The FLSA was enacted to protect employees from
working excessive hours for substandard pay. See Brooklyn
Sav. Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 706–07 (1945). To
achieve this goal, the FLSA sets a minimum hourly wage, and
mandates overtime pay for employees working more than
forty hours per week. Id. at 707; see 29 U.S.C.
§§ 206(a)(1)(C), 207(a)(1). The FLSA does not require that
employers provide meal or rest periods,2 but its implementing
regulations address both meal and rest periods by specifying
2 U.S. DEP’T OF LABOR, What does the Fair Labor Standards Act
NOT require?, https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/screen6.asp (last
visited May 21, 2021).

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that all rest periods and non-bona fide meal periods must be
compensated.
Regarding meal breaks, the FLSA’s implementing
regulations state:
(a) Bona fide meal periods. Bona fide meal
periods are not worktime. Bona fide meal
periods do not include coffee breaks or time
for snacks. These are rest periods. The
employee must be completely relieved from
duty for the purposes of eating regular meals.
Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough
for a bona fide meal period. A shorter period
may be long enough under special conditions.
The employee is not relieved if he is required
to perform any duties, whether active or
inactive, while eating. For example, an office
employee who is required to eat at his desk or
a factory worker who is required to be at his
machine is working while eating.
(b) Where no permission to leave premises. It
is not necessary that an employee be
permitted to leave the premises if he is
otherwise completely freed from duties during
the meal period.
29 C.F.R. § 785.19. Put simply, if an employee is not
“completely relieved from duty” during a meal period, the
FLSA requires employers to compensate employees for that
time. Id.

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Regarding rest breaks, the implementing regulations
provide:
Rest periods of short duration, running from 5
minutes to about 20 minutes, are common in
industry. They promote the efficiency of the
employee and are customarily paid for as
working time. They must be counted as hours
worked. Compensable time of rest periods
may not be offset against other working time
such as compensable waiting time or on-call
time.
29 C.F.R. § 785.18. In other words, federal law encourages,
but does not require, that employers provide rest breaks. And
it requires employers to compensate employees for any rest
breaks that are provided. An employer who fails to abide by
these meal- and rest-period regulations is liable to the
employees “in the amount of [the employees’] unpaid
minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, . . .
and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.”
29 U.S.C. § 216(b).
The FLSA is not as protective of workers as California
law; only the latter mandates that employers provide meal
and rest periods of certain duration and at specific intervals.
See Cal. Lab. Code § 512(a); 8 Cal. Code Regs. § 11160(11).
But the fact that federal law does not offer comparable
protections does not mean there is a gap in federal law that
state law may fill. The FLSA’s implementing regulations
expressly contemplate meal and rest periods, address how and
when these periods must be compensated as work time, and
provide a remedy to employees whose employers fail to
comply. Because the federal regulations address meal and

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 13
rest periods, there is no gap in federal law for state law to fill.
See Parker Drilling, 139 S. Ct. at 1891.
The district court approached this analysis differently. It
looked first to state law and compared California’s wage-and-
hour provisions against the protections provided by federal
law to determine whether there is a gap between the two
schemes. The court found a gap because “California law []
provides a minimum number of meal periods that must be
given, when they must be given, and a remedy for the
employee if they are not.” California law also requires a rest
period of ten minutes for each four-hour work period. In
contrast, “the [federal] regulation[s] concern[] the
computation of hours worked for purposes of determining
overtime pay, rather than regulating meal or rest periods.”
We cannot reconcile the district court’s approach with the
Supreme Court’s decision in Parker Drilling. “[T]he only
law on the OCS is federal law,” Parker Drilling, 139 S. Ct.
at 1889, so we must begin with the presumption that federal
law applies, and state law is adopted only to fill gaps in
federal law. Id. at 1891. The fact that federal law does not
provide meal- and rest-period protections as robust as
California’s does not mean that there is a gap in federal law
or that federal law does not address meal and rest periods.
The result we reach here is consistent with Parker Drilling,
which made clear that state law plays only a limited role on
the OCS. Id.
Mauia further argues that the FLSA’s regulations are not
applicable to his meal- and rest-period claims because they
“fall[] under a part of a subchapter . . . relating to ‘hours
worked.’” Stated differently, because the federal rules
concerning meal and rest periods are folded into the FLSA’s

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 14
definition of “hours worked” that must be compensated,
Mauia sees no “direct federal law counterpart to [the] state
law[s]” requiring employers to provide meal and rest periods,
and he concludes there is a gap between the two wage-and-
hour schemes.
Mauia is correct that the claims at issue in Parker Drilling
had direct federal counterparts: both the FLSA and California
law provide for a minimum wage—although California’s is
more generous—and both federal and California law address
whether employees must be paid for standby time. Id.
at 1893; compare 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1), with Cal. Lab. Code
§ 1182.12(b); compare 29 C.F.R. § 785.23, with Mendiola v.
CPS Security Sols., Inc., 340 P.3d 355, 361 (Cal. 2015). But
by urging us to find a gap if there is “no direct federal
counterpart” to a state provision, Mauia essentially asks that
we revive the type of pre-emption analysis the Supreme Court
rejected in Parker Drilling. See 139 S. Ct. at 1889. Mauia’s
argument fails because Parker Drilling does not require a
direct federal counterpart; it requires that we ask whether
federal law addresses the relevant issue, not whether federal
law addresses it in the same way. See id. at 1892–93
(rejecting Newton’s claim for standby-time wages under
California law because federal law provides that standby time
is not compensable).
The FLSA requires that all rest periods must be counted
as work time. It also requires that any meal period during
which an employee is not “completely relieved from duty”
must be counted as work time. 29 C.F.R. §§ 785.18, 785.19.
Federal law therefore addresses meal and rest periods, and
California law does not provide the rule of decision for meal-
and rest-time claims arising on the OCS. We reverse the
district court’s denial of Petrochem’s motion to dismiss

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MAUIA V. PETROCHEM INSULATION 15
Mauia’s California meal- and rest-period claims. Mauia
concedes that his unfair competition claim is predicated on
Petrochem’s alleged violations of California meal- and rest-
break laws. Therefore, we also reverse the order denying
Petrochem’s motion to dismiss his unfair competition claim.
REVERSED.

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