Follow Up: Time Spent Going Through Security Screening is Noncompensable Time for FLSA Purposes

In our prior blog post titled Compensable Time:  Do Employers Have To Pay Employees For Time Spent Going Through Security, we reported that the United States Supreme Court had just heard oral arguments in the case of Busk v. Integrity Solutions, Inc., a Ninth Circuit case that presented the question of whether employers are required to compensate employees for the time spent going through security (in Busk, the security screenings were post-shift screenings that all employees were required to complete before leaving the premises). Yesterday, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), time spent by employees waiting to undergo and undergoing security screenings is not compensable.

In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court relied on the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, which was enacted to limit overly broad interpretation of the FLSA.  Specifically, the Act exempts employers from liability under FLSA for claims based on "activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to" the performance of the principal activities the employee is employed to perform.  

The Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's position that the relevant issue is whether the particular activity is required by the employer.  Rather, and in accordance with the Portal-to-Portal Act, the correct analysis focuses on whether the activity at issue is a "principal activity" which the employee is employed to perform. In making this determination, the following are relevant principles the court pointed out:   

• The term "principal activity" includes all activities which are an integral and dispensable part of the principal activity
• "An activity is integral and indispensable to the principal activities an employee is employed to perform if it is an intrinsic element of those activities and one which the employee cannot dispense if he is to perform his principal activities"

Here, the Court found the security screenings noncompensable because:  

1. The screenings were not the principal activities for which the employees were employed (they were employed to retrieve products from warehouses and to package them for shipment); 
   
2. The screenings were not "integral and indispensable" to the employees' duties (the screenings were not an intrinsic element of retrieving the products from the warehouse and/or packaging for shipment); and
3. The employer could have eliminated the screenings without impairing the employees' ability to perform their job duties.

In a time when the obligations and requirements imposed on employers seem to increase daily, this decision is a significant victory for employers.  A copy of the Supreme Court's ruling can be found Here.