Employers, except those subject to the Federal Railway Labor Act, shall grant their employees a reasonable period for lunch, and such time shall be as close to the middle of the employee's scheduled work shift as possible. In no case shall an employee be required to take a lunch period sooner than three (3) hours after his work shift commences, nor more than five (5) hours from the time his work shift commences. This section shall not be construed to negate any provision of a collective bargaining agreement or mutual agreement between the employee and employer.
KRS 337.355
Lunch period requirements
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Parts Depot, Inc. v. Beiswenger (2005)
Most recently applied in 139 F. Supp. 3d 843 - McCartt v. Kellogg USA, Inc. (October 2015)
History: Created 1974 Ky
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.