90 Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (23rd Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com considered whether time spent by employees booting up and shutting down their computers was compensable under the FLSA.446 Customer Connexx operated a call center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Ninth Circuit was asked to determine whether the time spent by the call center employees in booting up and shutting down their work computers was an integral and indispensable part of their principal duties, thus making the time compensable under the FLSA. The district court granted summary judgment for Connexx, holding that such time was non-compensable. In reversing the district court’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that the boot up process was “integral and indispensable to the employees' duties and is a principal activity under the FLSA”, and thus compensable time. In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that all of the job activities that the employees performed required the use of the computer, and therefore getting the computer ready to use was “integral and indispensable” to the employees’ job duties.447 While this was a blow to employers, particularly employers whose workforce relies heavily on computers, the Ninth Circuit did leave room for the district court to consider whether the de minimis doctrine applied to time spent booting up and down the computers, thus rendering the time non-compensable. G. Compensability of Call-In Time for Standby Shifts Historically, employers’ general understanding of “reporting time pay” was that it is limited to situations where the employee physically comes in to work, but is sent home early. Upending this general belief, the Court of Appeal in Ward v Tilly’s, Inc.,448 in 2019 held that “an employee need not necessarily physically appear at the workplace to ‘report for work.’” Instead, an employee “reports for work” when the employee presents him or herself “as ordered.”449 In Ward, the Court of Appeal found that employees “reported for work” when they called in two hours before a tentatively scheduled shift to find out if Tilly’s wanted them to come in to the workplace.450 Ward cited notions of public policy to support its decision, stating: Reporting time pay requires employers to internalize some costs of overscheduling, thus encouraging employers to accurately project their labor needs and to schedule accordingly. Reporting time pay also partially compensates employees for the inconvenience and expense associated with making themselves available to work on-call shifts, including forgoing other employment, hiring caregivers for children or elders, and traveling to a worksite. Finally, reporting time pay makes employee income more predictable, by guaranteeing employees a portion of the wages they would earn if they were permitted to work the on-call shifts.451 446 Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC, 51 F.4th 831, 838 (9th Cir. 2022). 447 Id. at 839. 448 31 Cal. App. 5th 1167, 1185, review denied (May 15, 2019). 449 Id. 450 Id. 451 Id. at 1183-84.
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