Ninth Circuit Confirms Employees Must be Compensated by the “Second”

The Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco, California confirmed that even tiny amounts of work time must be counted and compensated (as in seconds on the clock). This opinion (Rodriguez v. Nike) should end the debate following the recent employer-driven campaign to revive the de minimus federal standard when considering California employment law issues and labor lawsuits.

In Rodriguez v. Nike, Isaac Rodriguez filed suit following his employment at a Nike owned California retail store. He worked at the Nike store from November 2011 through January 2012. Employees at the store (and other Nike stores throughout California), employees paid an hourly wage were required to track their hours on the clock using a time clock. As a theft deterrent, Nike required employees to allow exit inspections anytime they left the store (at the end of their shift or for a break). The mandatory checks varied in length depending on the circumstances, but they always occurred while the employee was clocked out, and the time was uncompensated.

Rodriguez filed a California class-action lawsuit against Nike in 2014 alleging violations under numerous sections of the California Labor Code and the Business and Professions Code. The complaint was dismissed in District Court on September 2017 with the court reasoning that the time necessary for the inspection was so brief it did not need to be counted according to the de minimus standard.

Then Troester v. Starbucks changed the landscape for this employment law issue when the court ruled that de minimus did not apply if the lawsuit being considered was brought at a state level under California labor code. The rule for federal lawsuits was not to be used for state lawsuits. After the 2018 ruling, Isaac Rodriguez went back to court amidst the new legal landscape. The Ninth Circuit Court sent Rodriguez's case back to the District Court for a decision consistent with the recent ruling in Troester v. Starbucks. The result was a reaffirmation of the judgment that the federal de minimus rule does not apply to state-level lawsuits, which is good news for wage earners in California. The question went from arguing over how many seconds we were talking about to a discussion of whether or not an employee is legally entitled to payment for work no matter how much time is in question.

An entire series of similar California cases have developed since the Troester v. Starbucks ruling. The ruling will affect all California wage earners, and the precedent provides both employers and employees a firm grasp of how to treat off the clock situations. 

If you have questions about off the clock job duties or if you have experienced California labor law violations in the workplace, the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP can help. Get in touch with the employment law office nearest you: San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange or Chicago.