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Updated: Frlekin v. Apple, United States District Court, Northern District of California


Back in August, I highlighted a case for readers to keep an eye on, Frlekin v. Apple.  (One to Keep An Eye On: Frlekin v. Apple).  The case, pending before the United States District Court for Northern District of California dealt with whether employees could be compensated for time spent in security screening lines after leaving work for the day and after having already clocked out.


Background:  In this case, a wage and hour class action was filed on the grounds that Apple employees were entitled to compensation for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings pursuant to Apple's bag-search and technology-card search policies and for time spent waiting for the searches to occur.  According to Apple, these searches were conducted to see if Apple products were being pilfered by employees.  

At issue was the fact that the employees had to clock out prior to undergoing the search and their recorded hours work did not account for the time spent being searched or waiting to be searched.  After the non-California claims were ultimately dismissed after the Supreme Court's holding in Integrity Staffing Solutions (Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk - United States Supreme Court), only the California related claims remained. 

Holding:  The District Court denied Frlekin's motion for summary judgment and granted Apple's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the time employees spent in security screenings after clocking out for the day was not compensable time.

The District Court noted that Wage Order 4 requires employers to pay employees for "all hours worked in the payroll period."  Subdivision 2(K) of Wage Order 4 defines "hours worked" as "the time during which an employer is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so."  

In this case, the Court turned to the first prong of Subdivision 2(K).  According to the facts, only employees who brought bags to work were subjected to the searches.  Therefore, employees could voluntarily choose not bring a bag to work and avoid the search altogether.  Consequently, the Court held that this "free choice" and lack of control by the employer was fatal to the claims presented. 

As for whether the employees were "suffered or permitted to work", the Court turned to Integrity Staffing Solutions for guidance.  As the Supreme Court held in that case, preliminary and postliminal activities could only be compensable if it constituted an "integral and indispensable" part of an employee's job responsibilities.  However, it had been previously held that an employee does not deserve compensation for time spent awaiting an integral and indispensable activity.  Similar to Integrity, the Court held that the time these employees spent waiting for searches to be completed did not constitute "work" under the "suffered or permitted" prong.  The fact that the security searches had no relationship to the job responsibilities again proved fatal the the claims presented. 

The Takeaway:  As I had mentioned in the prior post about this case, I thought the District Court would likely find in favor of Apple.  Given prior California caselaw and the guidance from the recent Supreme Court case, I think the Court got this one right.  It is important to recognize that in this instance, the District Court noted that the employees had the choice whether to bring a bag to work and consequently be subjected to the security screening.  The lack of control that Apple had in this situation worked to their benefit.  

As for the second prong that the Court looked at, Integrity Staffing Solutions proved to be too much for the plaintiffs to overcome.  The fact that neither the searches or waiting for them to be completed had any relationship to the job responsibilities of the employees prevented the claim from proceeding.  Had the plaintiffs been able to point the Court to stronger caselaw (and not had to overcome the recent Supreme Court case), there might have been a different outcome here.

Employers should take note of this case, especially since much of the Court's analysis focused on state law rather than Federal.  In this case, California law was on Apple's side and gave the Court authority to rely upon to grant Apple's motion for summary judgment.  Remember that just because the Federal law is on your side, if there is a claim that also includes state causes of action, you might not be out of the woods yet...depending upon your state.

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Alsup

Date:  November 7, 2015

Opinionhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwi3qeSr5qTKAhVBQyYKHcRqAhcQFggmMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.employmentclassactionreport.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F232%2F2015%2F11%2Fhttps-ecf-cand-uscourts-gov-doc1-035113550573.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFhx_BDAJPQ_0QqFmSGJxBcuFyr-A&sig2=ezDtNRdqxB54CCPbF5uWMQ&bvm=bv.111396085,d.eWE&cad=rja

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