88 Litigating CA Wage & Hour Class and PAGA Actions (24th Edition) Seyfarth Shaw LLP | www.seyfarth.com the Ninth Circuit emphasized that the plaintiff’s complaint does not allege any facts showing that his employer exercised any level of control over employees during the security checks, which were indisputedly required by federal law and administered by a federal body (TSA). Therefore, employers can cite Cazares to argue that a security check is not compensable when the employer has no control over it. In 2024, the California Supreme Court issued further guidance on compensable time in the context of security check points. In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, the California Supreme Court addressed key aspects of what constitutes “hours worked” under California wage law, in the context of employer control over employee activities.435 The case arose from a class action brought by electrical workers employed at a remote solar power facility who challenged their employer’s compensation practices, particularly regarding pre-shift and meal period activities. The Court’s decision provides critical guidance on how much employer control is sufficient to trigger compensation obligations under the Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders. The California Supreme Court held that employees must be compensated for time spent waiting at a security checkpoint in their personal vehicles prior to entering the worksite. The checkpoint procedure required employees to stop, scan their identification badges, and submit to visual inspection by security personnel. The Court found that this level of employer control—mandating the process and restricting employee movement—qualified as “hours worked” because employees were subject to the employer’s control and unable to use the time freely for their own purposes. The California Supreme Court also concluded that time spent driving from the security gate to the actual worksite did not constitute “hours worked,” despite the employer imposing a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit, prohibiting music, and limiting ingress/egress to a single private road. While acknowledging that the drive occurred under significant employer direction, the Court determined that the level of control fell short of the degree required to establish compensable “hours worked.” Nonetheless, the Court left open the possibility that this travel time could be compensable under Labor Code section 2802 as “employer-mandated travel,” suggesting employers may still be liable for expenses associated with this controlled commuting. Given the decision in Huerta, it is important for employers to critically assess the amount of control asserted when determining whether time is compensable in security check point situations. E. California’s Application of the De Minimis Doctrine California employers once could utilize the de minimis doctrine to defeat wage claims brought under the Labor Code.436 Under this doctrine, long applied to claims brought under the FLSA, short and sporadic amounts of time that an employee spends working off the clock are not compensable.437 In Lindow v. United States, the Ninth Circuit explained that “in determining whether otherwise compensable time is de minimis [under the FLSA], we will consider (1) the practical administrative difficulty of recording the additional time; (2) the aggregate amount of compensable time; and (3) the regularity of the additional work.”438 435 Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, 15 Cal. 5th 908 (2024) 436 See, e.g., Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057 (9th Cir. 1984) (approximately 7-8 minutes spent each day, before the shift started, reading log book and exchanging information, was de minimis because it was irregular and difficult to monitor). 437 Id. 438 Id. at 1063.
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