Apple has been denied its appeal to toss out a class-action lawsuit brought by current and former California-based Apple Store and corporate employees who claim the consumer electronics giant denied them legally required breaks during work.

The suit, filed in December 2011 by Brandon Felczer and other former Apple Store workers, was certified as a class-action suit in July. Apple sought to appeal that ruling but a three-judge panel in California’s Superior Court denied the tech giant’s motion for dismissal on Nov. 26, PCMag has learned.

“The petition for writ of mandate, informal response, and reply have been read and considered by Justices Nares, McDonald, and O’Rourke. The petition is denied,” stated a filing from the Superior Court of Appeal in San Diego.

Felczer and his attorneys claim he and others are owed unpaid back wages from the company.

Other plaintiffs named in the complaint against Apple are former Apple Store employees Ryan Goldman, Ramsey Hawkins, and Joseph Lane Carco.

“Apple now faces claims of meal period, rest period, and final pay violations affecting almost 21,000 current and former Apple employees,” San Diego attorney Tyler Belong said when the class-action suit was approved in the summer.

In addition to the claim that Apple failed to provide Apple Store employees with rest breaks as required by law, the complaint alleges a “failure to furnish accurate itemized wage statements” by the company.

An earlier, similar suit brought against Apple, filed in 2009 by former Genius Bar employee Steve Camuti, also claimed the company failed to provide employees with breaks in violation of California Labor Code.

The Camuti suit was not certified as a class-action proceeding but that may have been due to its timing, Belong told PCMag. A California Superior Court ruling in a landmark case involving restaurant workers and rest breaks, made after the Camuti suit, “opened the door” for class actions like the one being spearheaded by Felczer, the lawyer said.

The Camuti suit claimed that from 2004 onwards, Apple “has enjoyed an advantage over its competition and imposes a resultant disadvantage on its ‘Genius’ employees by failing to authorize, permit, and provide statutorily mandated rest breaks as required by law.”