The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held on October 24, 2022, in Cariene Cadena et al. v. Customer Connexx, LLC et al., No. 21-16522, that the time a group of call center workers spent booting up their computers was compensable time under the federal Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The fact-specific decision reversed the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, which had granted summary judgment to the employer-defendant regarding the FLSA claim.
Under the Portal-to-Portal Act, employers are not required to pay employees for time spent traveling to and from their principal place of work or for time spent on certain preliminary or postliminary activities. However, if the preliminary and postliminary activities are “an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities” for which the individual is employed, then the time is compensable.
In Customer Connexx, call center workers employed by the employer alleged they were not paid, as required under the FLSA and Nevada law, for time spent booting up their computers before logging on to their employer’s timekeeping system, nor for time spent turning off their computers after logging off. The District of Nevada found that booting up and turning off work computers were noncompensable preliminary and postliminary activities because the activities were not “principal activities” as the employees were not hired for that purpose. The Ninth Circuit...
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