Meagan Bainbridge and Lukas Clary from Weintraub Tobin’s Labor and Employment Group dive into the California Supreme Court case Huerta vs. CSI Electrical Contractors. Discover the key takeaways for employers on what constitutes compensable work time for pre- and post-shift activities in this latest installment.

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Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this installment of the “California Employment News,” an informative video and podcast resource offered by the Labor and Employment Group at Weintraub Tobin. My name is Megan Bainbridge, and I’m a shareholder in the firm’s Labor and Employment Group. today, I’m joined by my partner, Lukas Clary, to discuss a new case out of the California Supreme Court, Huerta versus CSI Electrical Contractors. Lukas, why Can you start us off with a brief background of the case?

Thanks, Megan. So, the Huerta case addresses the issue of whether California law requires employers to compensate employees for time spent on certain pre and post-shift tasks. We know that employees must be paid for all “hours worked.” We also know from the Industrial Wage Commission’s wage orders and various cases interpreting them that Hours worked generally means either of two things. One, time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, or two, time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so. Well, these may seem like clear rules. In practice, things can get a bit cloudier. What about things such as the time spent undergoing security checks after clocking out but before leaving the premises? Enter the Huerta case. In this case, the plaintiff, Fernando Huerta, worked as an electrician foreman for CSI Electrical Contractors. He alleged that CSI failed to compensate him and fellow employees for tasks performed before and after their scheduled shifts, such as picking up and returning job materials, undergoing security checks, and completing paperwork. He and the other employees entered the employer’s premises through a security gate where their vehicles were checked before driving about 10 to 15 minutes to the employee parking lot.

During this time, there were certain rules that were subject to and policies of CSI, including not playing music loudly, obeying speed limits, and complying with the company’s drug and alcohol policies. So Huerta argued that this uncompensated time on the premises should be considered compensable work under California labor laws. This case began in federal court, but since it involved unanswered questions of California state law, the Ninth Circuit utilized a procedure to ask the California Supreme Court to weigh in. Megan, what did the California Supreme Court have to say?

Well, there are two main holdings that I want to go over today. First, the court was asked, is time spent on an employer’s premises in a personal vehicle and waiting to scan an identification badge, have a security guard peer into a vehicle, and then exit the security gate compensable as hours worked? As the court determined, yes. An employee’s time spent on an employer’s premises awaiting and undergoing an employer-mandated exit procedure that includes the employer’s visual inspection of the personal vehicle is compensable as hours worked. Here, the court determined that the following factors were sufficient indicia of employer control to transfer the time to compensable hours worked. First, the employees were required to wait and undergo the exit security procedure before leaving the work premises. Two, employees remained confined to the employer’s premises until those exit procedures were completed. Three, employees were required to perform specific and supervised tasks as part of the exit procedure. This included driving the vehicle to the security gate, waiting until it was their turn, rolling down the vehicle’s window to present the security identification badge, and then submitting the vehicle to an individual inspection. For these reasons, the court determined that the employee exerted sufficient control to be considered hours worked.

Second, the court was asked whether the time spent on the premises in a personal vehicle driving between the security gate and then the parking lot was subject to certain rules from the employer to also make it hours worked. Here, the court determined that travel time from a security gate to an employee parking lot is only compensable if the security gate is the first location where an employee is required for an employment-related reason other than simply accessing the workplace. The court cautioned that this would be dependent on the specific facts in a specific case. However, the court also noted that simply driving a personal vehicle on an employer’s premises before or after a shift while subject to the employer’s rules, such as how loud the music can be, does not necessarily make that time compensable as hours worked, especially where those rules are designed to ensure safe, lawful, and orderly conduct while traveling on the employer’s premises. Lukas, given these two holdings, what are some key takeaways for employers?

Yes, I think there are several things employers should take away from this rolling. Employers should ensure that they are accurately tracking and compensating employees for all work-related activities, including those things like, similar to what was at issue in this case, that may have previously been overlooked. Employers should take note of whether and to what extent they place rules or restrictions on employees’ activities while on-premises. It’s also a good idea to review your policies and practices regarding employee timekeeping, task assignments, and compensation to make sure those all align with this ruling. Policies should clearly define what constitutes compensable time, especially when it comes to activities performed before or after scheduled work hours on the employer’s premises. Policies should also expressly discuss when employees are expected to start and end this compensable work activity to avoid any ambiguity and potential disputes. Finally, employers should make sure that all managers and supervisors are also properly trained on how to accurately track and compensate employees for all of these types of activities.

Thanks, Lucas, and that does it for today. Thank you for joining us. You can continue to find “California Employment News” at www.theleblog.com and wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. We’ll see you next time.