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2d. Cir.: When Employees Required to Arrive Early But Unable to Enter Workplace or Clock In, Pre-Shift Time is Compensable Work
When a worker is told to arrive early but cannot enter the workplace or clock in until a manager arrives, is that time unpaid “waiting”—or time the employer must count as work? In Santos v. Lidl, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the worker’s allegations could support a claim for compensation, because waiting time may be paid time when an employer requires an employee to report ready to work and the employee cannot begin for reasons outside their control.
The decision does not establish that Lidl violated wage laws or that Santos is owed wages. The court vacated the dismissal and sent the case back for further proceedings, leaving the underlying claims unresolved.
What Happened in Santos v. Lidl?
Sandra Santos worked as a store clerk and stocker at Lidl grocery stores in West Babylon, New York, from approximately July to November 2021.
She alleged that Lidl scheduled her for opening shifts beginning at 5:00 a.m. but required her and other opening-shift employees to report 15 minutes earlier.
According to the complaint, employees sometimes found the store locked because opening managers had not arrived; workers could not access the time clocks until they were let inside.
Santos alleged that this happened about once a week, resulting in 15 minutes of unpaid time per week, and that overtime wages were implicated during five weeks of her employment.
She brought claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL), seeking compensation for the alleged unpaid waiting time.
The Legal Issue: When Is Waiting Time Compensable?
Lidl argued that the Portal-to-Portal Act barred Santos’s claim because the waiting happened before her scheduled shift and was not compensable work time.
That federal law generally excludes certain activities before or after an employee’s principal work, but the Second Circuit explained that not all waiting before a shift is treated the same way.
The key distinction is whether an employee waited to be engaged—for example, by arriving early voluntarily—or was engaged to wait because the employer required the employee to report at a particular time, ready to work, when no work could begin for a reason beyond the employee’s control.
The court rejected Lidl’s argument that this principle applied only to traditional on-call jobs, such as firefighters. It said the regulation’s description of engaged-to-wait time was not limited to particular occupations.
Why the Court Allowed the Claim to Proceed
At this stage, the court had to accept Santos’s factual allegations as true and draw reasonable inferences in her favor.
Santos alleged that Lidl required her to arrive early and be ready to work, but that she could not enter the store or start work until a manager let her in.
The Second Circuit concluded that, if those allegations are proven, the waiting time could be compensable under the FLSA.
The court also declined to dismiss the claim as too minor, or “de minimis,” based only on the complaint. It said it could not then determine that 15 minutes of unpaid time per week was legally insignificant or that recording the time would be too difficult.
The Court’s Decision
The Second Circuit vacated the dismissal of Santos’s FLSA and NYLL time-shaving claims and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings.
The court assumed, without deciding, that the NYLL and FLSA claims rose or fell together on the time-shaving issue because both parties treated them that way in their appellate briefing.
One judge dissented, reasoning that Santos’s pre-shift wait was not part of her principal work and should not be compensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act.
What the Decision May Mean for Employees and Employers
For Employees
Santos shows that being required to arrive early does not automatically make every minute before a shift compensable. But when an employer requires an employee to report ready to work and the employee cannot start because of an employer-related obstacle, the waiting time may support a wage claim.
If you believe you were required to wait before clocking in, keep records of your scheduled and actual arrival times, when you were able to enter and clock in, and any instructions about arriving early. Santos’s claim centered on the alleged early-reporting requirement and the time employees could not enter the store.
For Employers
Employers should review opening procedures, timekeeping practices, and instructions given to employees about when to report. If employees are required to arrive before their shifts but cannot begin work because the workplace is inaccessible, the timekeeping process may create a wage-and-hour risk under the reasoning in Santos.
The decision also makes clear that whether short waiting periods are too small to count cannot necessarily be resolved from a complaint alone; the circumstances and evidence may matter.
Bottom Line
Santos v. Lidl is a reminder that unpaid time before a shift may be legally significant when an employee is required to report ready to work but cannot begin because of circumstances beyond their control. The appeal ruling allowed Santos’s claims to proceed; it did not decide whether Lidl ultimately owes her or other workers compensation.
If you are an employee in a similar situation, document the reporting requirement and the time you are unable to work, and consider speaking with an employment attorney about your specific circumstances.
Click Santos v. Lidl to read the entire decision.
E.D.Tex.: Texas Court Strikes Down DOL Overtime Rule
Texas v. United States Department of Labor
Last week, in a long-awaited decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas struck down the 2024 Rule issued by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which aimed to increase the salary threshold for the executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The rule which would have provided overtime for approximately 4,000,000 workers who do not currently receive it.
The case continued a back and forth in which Democrat administrations have sought to expand workers’ rights by increasing the salary thresholds required to maintain overtime exemptions, and Republican appointed judges have invalidated the rules, stripping workers of enhanced rights provided by DOL promulgated regulations.
Background of the Case
The FLSA mandates that most employees must receive at least the federal minimum wage and overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. However, certain employees are exempt from these requirements, particularly those classified under the EAP exemptions. Historically, the DOL has set a minimum salary level to qualify for these exemptions.
In April 2024, the DOL announced the 2024 Rule, which significantly raised the minimum salary threshold for EAP employees—from $684 to $844 per week starting July 1, 2024, and further to $1,128 per week by January 1, 2025. Additionally, the rule included an automatic indexing mechanism for future salary increases based on contemporary earnings data every three years.
The Legal Challenge
Texas, along with a coalition of business organizations, argued that the DOL overstepped its statutory authority by effectively prioritizing salary over the actual duties performed by employees. They contended that the changes would displace the duties-based test required by the FLSA and improperly classify millions of employees as nonexempt from overtime pay, despite no changes to their job responsibilities.
The court’s analysis began with the text of the FLSA, which does not explicitly specify a minimum salary for the EAP exemption. The DOL has historically exercised its authority to define and delimit this exemption, but the court emphasized that such authority has limits—primarily that the focus should remain on the duties performed by employees rather than solely their salary.
The Court’s Ruling
Judge Sean D. Jordan ruled in favor of Texas and the business organizations, stating that the DOL’s 2024 Rule was an unlawful exercise of agency power. The court held that the rule’s changes effectively eliminated the consideration of job duties in favor of a predominately salary-based exemption test, contravening the FLSA’s intent.
The ruling detailed that the DOL’s increase in salary thresholds and the implementation of automatic indexing would improperly classify millions of employees as nonexempt, thereby violating the fundamental purpose of the EAP exemption, which is to protect workers who perform executive, administrative, or professional duties.
Implications of the Decision
This ruling has far-reaching implications for employers and employees alike. By vacating the 2024 Rule, the court has reinstated the previous salary thresholds and reaffirmed the importance of the duties test in determining exemption status.
This order effectively reverts the minimum weekly salary requirement back to the 2019 number, $684 per week (except in jurisdictions, such as California and New York, which have higher minimum requirements under state law). In the months leading up to the July 1 increase, many employers reclassified workers as nonexempt. In theory, employees who were converted to nonexempt due to the July 1 increase may now be reclassified to exempt, if desired.
It is anticipated that the DOL will appeal this decision to the Fifth Circuit. However, any appeal most certainly will not be resolved by the Jan. 1 effective date of the next planned increase, and the new administration may ultimately abandon the appeal at a later date if it is still pending. The 2019 rule, which is now once again in effect, was issued under the previous Trump administration.
Key takeaways at this time are:
- The minimum salary for exempt status under federal law is once again $684 per week, with limited exceptions.
- Employees who earned between $684 and $844 per week and were reclassified as nonexempt as a result may be reclassified as exempt, provided they continue to meet one of the applicable job duties tests.
- The anticipated increase to $1,128 per week on Jan. 1, 2025, will not occur.
- Any future revisions to the minimum salary will not face an uphill battle, ostensibly freezing wages for millions of Americans paid relatively moderate salaries.
Click Texas v. United States Department of Labor to read the entire decision.
DOL Issues Final Rule Raising Salary Threshold for Exempt “White Collar” Employees
After a lengthy comment period, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued its final rule on April 23, 2024, and raised the salary threshold for “white collar” employees to be exempt from federal overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The new rule significantly increases the minimum salary requirement for executive, professional, and administrative employees, effective July 1, 2024. In other words, once the new rule goes into effect, an employer will have to pay such employees a significantly higher minimum weekly salary in order to legally classify them as exempt from overtime under the FLSA.
Currently, to be exempt from federal overtime requirements under the FLSA, a white-collar worker must receive a guaranteed base salary of at least $684 per week ($35,568 per year), in addition to satisfying the applicable “duties” test. The newly propagated rule increases this minimum salary threshold, initially to $844 per week ($43,888 per year) as of July 1, 2024, and then to $1,128 per week ($58,656 per year) as of January 1, 2025. Thereafter, the rule provides for an automatic update to the threshold every three years levered to statistical wage data.
The rule also raises the annualized salary threshold for white-collar workers to qualify under the “highly compensated employee” overtime exemption. As of July 1, 2024, this threshold would increase from $107,432 to $132,964, then on January 1, 2025, it would increase to $151,164, and thereafter the threshold would be updated every three years based on wage data.
The new rule does not modify the duties test for either the white-collar or highly compensated employee exemption, which also must be satisfied for an employee to properly be classified as exempt from federal overtime pay requirements. Likewise, the new rule does not impact employees subject to other overtime exemptions, for which the salary-basis test is not an element of the exemption (e.g. truck drivers or seasonal employees).
Click FINAL RULE to read the rule in its entirety. Click summary chart to see a chart of the applicable dates and thresholds.
11th Cir.: Nanny Who Worked Overnight Shifts Not Domestic Live-In Employee and Thus Overtime Eligible
In a reported decision issued on Wednesday, the 11th Circuit reversed the trial court seemingly applying clear law that a nanny who did not reside on her premises with the family whose children she took care of, and held that such an arrangement was not live-in domestic employment. As such, the court reversed the decision of the trial court, which had held that the nanny was exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions as a live-in domestic employee. In so doing, the court adopted much of the argument raised by the DOL in its amicus brief in the case. However, the 11th Circuit remanded for further findings regarding whether the parents of the nanny’s charges were here employer, finding that issues of fact precluded a finding on that issue.
Addressing the principal issue of whether the plaintiff was a “domestic” or not, the court found the issue to be clear-cut: “No doubt Blanco worked at the house and spent significant time there. But that alone does not mean she ‘resided’ there any more than firefighters who sleep in fire-station dormitories while on duty reside at a fire station,” the panel said.
The court further noted that the plaintiff’s job was “hardly a typical arrangement” of a live-in nanny.
The panel noted that while the plaintiff did sleep, at times, when she was on duty to take care of the children, the place she slept was not her own, as she shared the bed she slept in with other nannies, and the room in which she slept with 2 of the couple’s smallest children. Further, the court noted that if/when a child woke up in and/or cried in the middle of the night, she would “immediately respond”. Thus, “though Blanco may have slept sometimes while the children slept, her time was not hers,” the panel said.
The panel also noted as significant that the plaintiff lacked her own key to the house, adding that the mere fact that she had left personal belongings at the residence and some religious decorations, and occasionally had guests over didn’t make the house her own. Likewise, the court noted that the plaintiff maintained her own separate residence and paid rent to live in her aunt’s nearby apartment, where she typically returned at the end of her shifts, so that she could sleep in her own bed.
The court also rejected the defendant-parents’ argument that Blanco would be overtime-exempt under a 2013 U.S. Department of Labor rule that aimed at expanding FLSA protections. While the language of the preamble to the rule seemed to signal that five consecutive nights is the appropriate measuring stick to determine whether a nanny lived at someone’s residence, the court noted that such language was contained in the preamble to the rule and not the text of the actual rule’s text, and thus not a proper source of interpretive guidance.
The court also noted that the defendant-parents’ arguments regarding application of the rule/preamble ignored the context in which the five consecutive nights phrase is included, reasoning that such argument failed to consider the plaintiff’s four off-duty days that preceded the five days on-duty.
As such, the court concluded that the plaintiff was not an exempt domestic service employee as a matter of law. However, the court held that issues of fact regarding application of the “economic realities” test to plaintiff’s employment, required further findings by the trial court as to whether the defendant-parents were plaintiff’s employers under the FLSA.
Among the factual issues the court cited were the fact that: (1) one defendant testified she didn’t give any directions to the nannies on how to care for her children or control or supervise the plaintiff; (2) the defendants’ testimony that they didn’t know how much the nannies received in wages, as the mother testified that she paid about $2,400 per week to Amazing Gracie LLC, one of the two companies the parents used to hire the nannies that was managed by one of the nannies who worked for the family; and (3) the defendant-mother’s testimony that she didn’t know how plaintiff had started working for the family. In light of these factual issues, the court held that the defendants presented enough evidence to show that “they had minimal oversight over the nannies’ care for their children” and thus there remained a question of fact as to whether they were the plaintiff’s employer, upon application of the “economic realities” test.
Click Blanco v. Anand Samuel to read the entire opinion.
Click DOL Amicus to read the DOL’s amicus brief.
DOL Seeks to Raise Salary Threshold for White Collar Exemption to Overtime
On August 30, 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would significantly raise the minimum weekly salary to qualify for one of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) three white-collar exemptions. If the changes go into effect, they would have a significant impact on how employers pay their employees and who is or is not entitled to overtime pay.
Specifically, the DOL proposes raising the weekly salary by over 50 percent from $684 per week to $1,059 per week (which is the equivalent to an annual salary of $55,068). The DOL also seeks to increase the annualized salary threshold for the exemption for “highly compensated employees” (HCE) from $107,432 per year to $143,988 per year. Finally, the DOL proposes automatically updating these earnings thresholds every three years.
The Proposed Rule
According to the DOL’s press release, the proposed rule seeks to accomplish four (4) primary goals:
- Restore and extend overtime protections to low-paid salaried workers. Many low-paid salaried employees work side-by-side with hourly employees, doing the same tasks and often working over 40 hours a week. Because of outdated and out-of-sync rules, however, the DOL believes these low-paid salaried workers are not getting paid time-and-one-half for hours worked over 40 in a week. The DOL’s proposed salary increase would help ensure that more of these low-paid salaried workers receive overtime protections traditionally provided by the DOL’s rules.
- Give valuable time back to workers who are not exempt under the executive, administrative or professional exempt classifications. By better identifying which employees are executive, administrative or professional employees who should be overtime exempt, the proposed rule will better ensure that those who are not exempt will gain more time with their families or receive additional compensation when working more than 40 hours a week.
- Prevent a future erosion of overtime protections and ensure greater predictability. The rule proposes automatically updating the salary threshold every three years to reflect current earnings data.
- Restore overtime protections for US territories. From 2004 until 2019, the DOL’s regulations ensured that for US territories where the federal minimum wage was applicable, so too was the overtime salary threshold. The DOL’s proposed rule would return to that practice and ensure that workers in the US territories subject to the federal minimum wage have the same overtime protections as other US workers.
The DOL further stated in the FAQs that “[a]utomatically updating the salary level and HCE total annual compensation requirement using the most recent data will ensure that these tests continue to accurately reflect current economic conditions.” The FAQs further noted that the proposed rule includes a provision that would allow “the Department to temporarily delay a scheduled automatic update where unforeseen economic or other conditions warrant.”
As with the most recent 2019 rule, which increased the salary and total annual compensation requirements for the EAP and HCE exemptions, the DOL has not proposed any changes to the duties tests, which outline the types of primary duties an employee must perform in order to be classified as exempt (in addition to receipt of a salary at or above the threshold).
Read more about the NPRM in the DOL’s official press release.
Supreme Court Confirms That a Day Rate is Not a Salary
Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. v. Hewitt
In a widely anticipated opinion, on February 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that an employee who was paid a daily rate more than $684 per day, who received a total of more than $200,000 per year, was not paid on a “salary basis” as required for application of the highly-compensated employee (HCE) exemption. As such, the court held that he was entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) notwithstanding his high total annual earnings.
The ruling will have wide-ranging implications the oil and gas industry, the nursing field, and other industries which often rely on “day rate only” pay schemes and pay schemes which pay high hourly rates (but no overtime) to attract workers to remote locations, often on short notice.
Relevant Facts
The case concerned an employee who alleged he had been misclassified as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions, and improperly denied overtime premium compensation. He worked twenty-eight day “hitches” on an offshore oil rig where he would work daily twelve-hour shifts, often seven days per week, totaling 84 hours a week. Throughout his employment, the plaintiff was on a daily-rate basis, without overtime compensation, earning between $963 and $1,341 per day, an amount that equated with more than $200,000 annually.
Helix had argued that the plaintiff fell under the DOL’s exemption for highly compensated employees found in 29 C.F.R. §541.601. At the time of the toolpusher’s employment, the highly compensated employee (HCE) exemption applied to employees whose primary duties included performing office or non-manual work; who customarily and regularly performed at least one duty of an exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee; and who were paid at least $455 per week on a “salary or fee basis”; and who earned at least $100,000 annually. (Currently, the threshold salary and total compensation amounts are $684 per week and $107,432 annually, respectively.)
Opinion of the Court
In its decision, the high court stated that the “critical question” in this case was whether the plaintiff was paid on a “salary basis” pursuant to 29 C.F.R. §541.602(a). That regulation states that an employee is paid on a “salary basis” when the “employee regularly receives each pay period on a weekly, or less frequent basis, a predetermined amount constituting all or part of the employee’s compensation.”
Helix had argued that in any week in which the employee performed any work, he was guaranteed to receive an amount above the $455 weekly threshold, such that his compensation met the requirements of the salary basis test.
The court rejected this argument, holding that §541.602(a) “applies solely to employees paid by the week (or longer)” and the test is “not met when an employer pays an employee by the day.” The court noted that a companion regulation, 29 C.F.R. §541.604(b), allows an employee’s earnings to be computed on an hourly, daily, or shift basis without violating the salary basis requirement, that regulation states that the arrangement must include a guarantee of at least the minimum weekly required amount paid on a salary basis and that there be a reasonable relationship between the guaranteed amount and the amount actually earned. However, the parties in this case agreed that the plaintiff’s compensation failed the reasonable relationship test, such that the sole issue was whether his admitted day rates qualified as a “salary basis” within the meaning of §541.602(a).
Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan stated that “[i]n demanding that an employee receive a fixed amount for a week no matter how many days he has worked, §602(a) embodies the standard meaning of the word ‘salary’” which generally refers to a “steady and predictable stream of pay.” Justice Kagan stated that even a “high-earning employee” who is compensated on a “daily rate—so that he receives a certain amount if he works one day in a week, twice as much for two days, three times as much for three, and so on” is “not paid on a salary basis, and thus entitled to overtime pay.”
Key Takeaway
The court’s decision will likely have wide-ranging impact. Employers have long-argued that the FLSA was not intended to protect highly-compensated employees, notwithstanding the unambiguous language of the statute itself and the DOL’s regulations. The majority squarely rejected this reasoning, adopting a typically conservative textualist approach and holding that the regulations mean precisely what they say and must be strictly construed to protect employees, both low-wage and higher-wage.
Click Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. v. Hewitt to read the entire opinion of the court and the dissents.
9th Cir.: LA County Was Joint Employer of Home Healthcare Workers, Liable Under the FLSA
Ray v. Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services
In a recent published opinion, the Ninth Circuit held that Los Angeles County is a joint employer of state-provided home health care aides and is liable for alleged failures to pay those aides sufficient overtime wages, the Ninth Circuit held Friday. The opinion partially reversed the lower court’s which held that the County was not jointly for the wage violations alleged.
The case arose from California’s In-Home Supportive Services program, a publicly-funded initiative under which the state and counties pay the wages of certain in-home care providers who assist low-income elderly, blind and disabled residents. In 2017, IHSS provider Trina Ray sued both the California Department of Social Services and the LA County Department of Public Social Services, alleging that the governments jointly employed her and failed to pay time and a half overtime premiums.
The district court granted LA County summary judgment, largely relying on the fact that the county had no hand in issuing paychecks to IHSS workers. Rejecting the reasoning of the lower court, the Ninth Circuit held that the county still had sufficient economic control over the program, noting that counties provide 35% of the program’s budget, and counties are able to negotiate for higher-than-minimum wages for home care workers among other things.
Thus, the panel held that counties were joint employers alongside the state under existing Ninth Circuit precedent, reasoning.
However, the panel split on whether the state-level centralization of the IHSS program’s payroll system meant that the county’s FLSA violations were willful. The majority concluded that the state’s ultimate control of pay processes meant counties had no ability to provide overtime pay without authorization.
Writing in partial dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon disagreed with the majority’s finding that the county’s FLSA violations were in good faith. Regardless of whether the county or state ordinarily handled payroll, Judge Berzon said that joint employers were individually and jointly responsible for ensuring compliance with the FLSA under Bonnette, prior Ninth Circuit precedent.
“Allowing joint employers to avoid liability for violations of the FLSA by showing they ordinarily did not perform a particular employer function would risk undermining the statute’s remedial purposes,” Judge Berzon said.
It would appear that the dissent is correct in that FLSA, does not permit a finding of “good faith” simply in reliance on or because a joint employer was more actively responsible for the unpaid wages. Rather, well-settled law requires an employer to demonstrate affirmative steps that it undertook to ascertain and comply with the FLSA’s requirements, which appear to be lacking here.
Click Ray v. Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services to read the entire Opinion.
Click Nurse Wages to learn more about wage and hour rights of home health aides (HHAs), certified nurse assistants (CNAs), licensed nurse practitioners (LPNs) and registered nurses (RNs).
7th Cir.: Truck Driver Adequately Alleged He Was Misclassified as an Independent Contractor and Thus Entitled to Minimum Wage and Overtime
Brant v. Schneider National, Inc.
In this case, a truck owner-operator who contracted with an over the road hauling company contended that he was misclassified as an independent contractor, and thus entitled to overtime pay and minimum wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Wisconsin law (minimum wage). In addition, the plaintiff alleged that the contracts he signed with the defendant were unconscionable and thus defendant was unjustly enriched because it required him to bear overhead costs that should have been borne by defendant. Finally, plaintiff alleged that defendant violated the Truth in Leasing regulations, based on representations it made to him.
After the district court dismissed the case with leave to amend, the plaintiff amended his complaint, and the defendant moved to dismiss the amended complaint. The lower court again dismissed the complaint, but the second time with prejudice, and held that plaintiff’s claims were essentially barred by the very agreements he was challenging the legality of. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that employee status is determined by application of the “economic reality” test and thus, reaffirmed the longstanding black letter law that FLSA rights may not abridged by contract.
While Schneider argued that this agreement established that the driver had a high degree of control over his work and that Schneider had therefore properly classified him as an independent contractor, the plaintiff argued that under the controlling test–the economic reality test–he was Schneider’s employee.
Under the FLSA, workers are employees when “as a matter of economic reality, [they] are dependent upon the business to which they render service.” As the Seventh Circuit noted, the economic reality test includes analyzing: (1) the nature and degree of the alleged employer’s control as to the manner in which the work is to be performed; (2) the alleged employee’s opportunity for profit or loss depending upon his managerial skill; (3) the alleged employee’s investment in equipment or materials required for his task, or his employment of workers; (4) whether the service rendered requires a special skill; (5) the degree of permanency and duration of the working relationship; and (6) the extent to which the service rendered is an integral part of the alleged employer’s business.
In reversing dismissal of the driver’s minimum wage claims, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the district court had “erred by giving decisive effect to the terms of [its] contracts,” when “what matters is the economic reality of the working relationship, not necessarily the terms of a written contract.”
For instance, while the operating agreement gave the driver the ability to choose the route and schedule to follow when delivering a shipment, the driver alleged that “the economics of his work constrained his route selection, so his nominal freedom to choose a route did not determine whether he controlled his labor.”
Similarly, while the operating agreement gave the driver the ability to choose which Schneider shipments to haul (and in theory, to select more shipments with higher profit margins), the driver alleged that he could not actually exercise this theoretical right to turn down shipments. The driver further alleged that, despite the terms of his contract, Schneider did not allow him to hire workers or haul freight for other carriers.
In light of these allegations, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the driver’s amended complaint had pled sufficient facts to allow a plausible inference that Schneider was his employer and he was its employee, and not an independent contractor. Thus, the Seventh Circuit reversed.
Click Brant v. Schneider National, Inc. to read the entire Opinion.
*** Andrew Frisch and Morgan & Morgan are actively handling and investigating similar cases regarding independent contractor misclassification. If you believe you have been misclassified as an independent contractor by a current or former employer, contact us for a free consultation at (888) OVERTIME [888-683-7846] today. ***
9th Cir.: Time Spent by Call Center Workers Booting Up Computers is Compensable
Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC
The time a group of call center workers spent booting up their computers is inextricably intertwined with their work and therefore compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Ninth Circuit ruled this week, overturning a win a district court handed to their employer, and joining sister circuits who have reached a similar conclusion.
In a unanimous published decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed a Nevada district court’s 2021 decision which had granted call center employer Customer Connexx LLC summary judgment on the workers’ overtime suit, reasoning that the workers needed to have a functional computer in order to do their jobs. Thus, the panel concluded that the time the call center workers spent booting up the computers is compensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act.
“The employees’ duties cannot be performed without turning on and booting up their work computers, and having a functioning computer is necessary before employees can receive calls and schedule appointments,” U.S. Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee wrote on behalf of the panel.
Under the Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the FLSA, employers are not required to pay for time workers spend traveling to and from the place of principal work activities or for time they spend on certain preliminary or postliminary activities which are not integral to their work.
Here, the workers sued in 2018, alleging that Connexx, failed to pay them overtime as required by the FLSA and Nevada law, because they failed to track and compensate them for the time they spent booting up and turning off their computers after they logged into and out of the company’s timekeeping system.
The district court granted Connexx summary judgment in July 2021, finding that the tasks the workers completed before and after they logged out of the company’s timekeeping system were not compensable preliminary and postliminary activities because they did not meet the legal standard to be considered part of their jobs.
The Ninth Circuit disagreed and reversed, saying the district court erred in focusing its reasoning on whether the activities were essential to the workers’ jobs and should have instead put emphasis on whether starting the computer led the call center workers to be able to perform their work. Discussing the issue, the Court explained:
When the employees’ duties are understood in this way, the electronic timekeeping system becomes a red herring. It is a convenience to the employer… It has no impact on the ‘integral and indispensable’ analysis except to show us when Connexx began counting the employees’ time.
Because the workers needed to have “a functional computer … turning on or waking up their computers at the beginning of their shifts is integral and indispensable to their principal activities,” the panel concluded.
The Ninth Circuit also rejected Connexx’s argument that the district court’s decision should be affirmed because the pre-shift time was de minimis and because the company was not aware of the alleged overtime, noting that those are “factual questions” that the lower court didn’t address, and thus not properly before it.
Of note, the panel clarified in a footnote that its opinion focused on the pre-shift activities, and stated that its opinion should not be read to hold that turning the computers off was an integral part of the workers’ jobs.
The Department of Labor had filed an amicus brief in support of the workers, in which it argued the time at issue was compensable under the FLSA, because the workers could not do their jobs without booting up the computers.
Click Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC to read the entire decision.
*** Andrew Frisch and Morgan & Morgan are actively handling and investigating similar cases on behalf of call center workers. If you believe your call center employer is not paying you for all time worked, contact us for a free consultation at (888) OVERTIME [888-683-7846] today. ***
10th Cir.: Workers for Recreational Marijuana Covered by FLSA, Notwithstanding Federal Law Which Renders Business Illegal
Following denial of the defendant-employer Helix’s motion to dismiss, Helix appealed. Helix–a company that provides security services in the state sanctioned recreational marijuana business–appealed contending that the FLSA did not apply to it. Specifically, Helix asserted that the FLSA does not apply to workers such as plaintiff, because Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry is in violation of federal law, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Rejecting this argument just as the court below had, the Tenth Circuit held that just because an employer – such as one in Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry – may be in violation of federal law, here the CSA, that does not mean its employees are not entitled to overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Helix TCS, Inc., provides security services for businesses in Colorado’s state-sanctioned marijuana industry. One of its employees, Robert Kenney, alleged that he and other security guards regularly worked more than 40 hours per week without overtime pay.
Helix did not dispute the fact that Kenney worked more than 40 hours without overtime, nor did it try to argue that he was covered by one of the FLSA’s many overtime exemptions. Instead, it argued that the FLSA was in conflict with CSA’s purpose. The Tenth Circuit rejected this argument and held that employers are not excused from complying with federal laws because of their other federal violations.
The 10th Circuit compared the situation to the 1931 trial of Al Capone in which jurors convicted the gangster for failing to pay taxes on his ill-gotten income. Just as there was no reason then why the fact a business was unlawful should exempt it from paying the taxes it would otherwise have had to pay, the Tenth Circuit said there is no reason today why a recreational marijuana company should be exempt from paying overtime just because it may be in violation of the CSA.
Click Kenney v. Helix TCS, Inc. to read the entire decision.