• The Illinois Supreme Court held that Illinois’s Minimum Wage Law does not adopt federal exclusions for preliminary and postliminary activities.
• The ruling came in a certified question from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and revived a class of employees’ state wage-and-hour claims over mandatory pre-shift COVID-19 screenings.
• The ruling highlights a trend of state courts holding that their states’ wage-and-hour laws do not necessarily follow the federal understanding of compensable time.

On March 19, 2026, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision answering a certified question from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals concerning whether Section 4a of the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL) incorporates the PPA’s exclusion from compensation for activities that are “preliminary to or postliminary to [an employee’s] said principal activity or principal activities.”

Pre-Shift COVID-19 Screenings

In Johnson, a group of employees filed a class action alleging they were not compensated for mandatory pre-shift COVID-19 screenings, which they claimed lasted an average of ten to fifteen minutes and sometimes caused them to clock in late. The employees raised claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the IMWL.

A federal district court found that the employees’ federal claims were barred under the PPA, which amended the FLSA to relieve employers from paying for commuting time and certain “preliminary or postliminary” (i.e., before and after...

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