What is de minimis work and why should the employer bear the burden? De minimis work might include those extra tasks that might still need to be completed once the “time clock” is turned off…but are considered to be insignificant and irregular. But a few extra minutes, on a regular basis, can really add up for some people! While employers find it to be a hassle to count that “time” which might only come to a total of $102.67, to the Plaintiff, in the case now going back to the Ninth Circuit (thought to be leading in employee protections), Troester v. Starbucks, that amount means a lot. Earning an hourly wage of $8 per hour, receiving pay for those off the clock tasks could mean the difference between this employee getting a utility bill paid on time or putting gas in his car to get him to work everyday.
On July 26, 2018, the California Supreme Court held that California law does require that employers are to pay wages (even when those short periods of time seem insignificant to track). This was in response to a shift supervisor of Starbucks who filed a complaint against his employer for the amount he should have been paid, had his work been tracked for those “short periods of time” he needed to complete his daily tasks and responsibilities after clocking out for the shift.
All of those tasks were not always required but they were still expected of him. While it was obviously his responsibility to activate the alarm and lock the front door each day, tasks that some would argue might only take him moments to complete, his tasks often times also included him having to walk coworkers to their cars in compliance with the Starbucks safety rules as well as putting away outdoor furniture forgotten outside. Then if someone forgot something inside, he would have to walk them back onto the premises and then he would have to follow his daily closing procedure again, all while off the clock.
During the brief 17 months of employment with Starbuck’s, the shift supervisor has estimated that he was underpaid a total of $102.67…which may not seem like a lot due, but what about each of the Starbuck’s locations each having their own shift supervisor (a non-managerial position) making the same type of claim? That can really add up!
While in 2012, when the shift supervisor brought a class action against Starbuck’s on behalf of himself and other non-managerial employees, the federal district court still granted summary judgment to Starbuck’s. They held that the employee’s closing activities occurred regularly and only took them a few minutes per day to complete so the administrative difficulty to track and compensate did not need to rest on the employer. These activities were labeled de minimis time; so Starbuck’s was not required to pay wages for them.
California – Known as Overprotecting the Rights of Workers
The decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and it was then that the California Supreme Court was asked to decide whether that de minimis rule, the Lindow rule, should be used as a defense against wage claims brought under the California Labor Code. Their answer was No.
According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (the federal law that is meant to protect workers’ wages) requirements state that workers be paid for the time during which they are “permitted” to work. While many court decisions have recognized an exception to this for those short periods of time that are difficult to track, in California their law governing payment of workers requires that California workers must be paid for “all hours worked.” The California Supreme Court did not find that this included those de minimis periods of time.
This latest decision made for the shift supervisor involved an interpretation of California law and while it may be informative for other states, it is not always applicable in those states. For example, recently in Florida, the Eleventh Circuit recently held that the de minimis exception applied and prevented an employee from being able to recover wages for tasks completed off the clock.
Under the facts presented to it in Troester v. Starbucks Corporation, where the employer allegedly required employees to “work ‘off the clock’ several minutes per shift,” the California Supreme Court found that the relevant statute and regulations did not allow for the application of the de minimis rule.
It was never argued that the plaintiff “had various duties related to closing the store after he clocked out, and the parties [had] agree[d] for purposes of [the California Supreme Court] resolving the issue . . . that the time spent on these duties is compensable.” It was also never argued that these tasks took the plaintiff from between 4 and 10 minutes at the end of each shift that he worked. Based on this, the Court found that the de minimis rule would not be applicable, agreeing that, under California law, an “employer that requires its employees to work minutes off the clock on a regular basis or as a regular feature of the job may not evade the obligation to compensate the employee for that time by invoking the de minimis doctrine.”
The question here though, is that if this issue were to be considered classwide, then would someone need to inspect each worker making a claim to determine if that worker actually worked “minutes” off-the-clock on a “regular” basis or not. Some examples make it possible for an employer to account for every second spent on work-related tasks (ex. receiving shift change information over text message during off-hours, technical glitches or answering questions to customers who do not realize they are on their way out of work, etc.).
Companies who do business in California are now required to review their timekeeping systems and practices. This case may lead many employees to follow suit and file similar claims against their employers for insignificant amounts of time but the requirements needed to be met to get their classes certified or their claims filed with the Labor Commissioner’s office remain as strict as ever.In order to ensure that your company is following the best timekeeping practices in order to avoid future claims, or if you have any questions or concerns that you feel change is needed, contact me today to discuss the possibilities. Our nation’s laws are changed by one small case at a time. www.rupallaw.com
