Are customers who use self-checkout entitled to be paid for it?
NOTE FROM ROBIN: At least one California lawyer thinks so. He recently filed a lawsuit contending that his client, a supermarket customer, and other California customers of the same supermarket chain, are entitled to wages for using the self-checkout option. Zan Blue of our Nashville Office thinks the lawsuit is creative and needs to be watched based on the definition of "employ" in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and California law. But Jim Coleman, co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group, thinks it's baloney. And the last word comes from Steve Katz, co-chair of our Appellate Practice Group, who also happens to be from California. We present, you decide.
IF SELF-CHECKOUT CUSTOMERS WERE "EMPLOYEES" . . .
From Zan:
My economics professor in college, Professor Linstromberg, had a glass eye. He was one of my favorite professors ever. I was questioning something one day in his office. We were arguing and laughing and enjoying ourselves. I kept objecting to what he was telling me. So he suddenly pulled out his glass eye, rolled it on the desk, and said, “Sometimes, Zan, you just have to have a keen eye for the obvious.” That’s a true story. Keep reading.
A lawsuit recently filed in Superior Court in San Francisco may or may not survive, but it makes one think about the obvious. Sophia shops at the grocery. She is steered to the ubiquitous self-checkout lanes. She checks her groceries, pays the machine,...
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