thank you judge better yes your honor is made counsel may please the court this court should reverse the grant of summary judgment in favor of the city of chicago many against the nearly the entire swat team for the chicago police department because the district court ordered or made a finding that swat operators can perform their principal activity without taking their gear and weapons home and your honors they cannot perform their principal activity without taking gear and weapons home why not the  reason why not is a couple reasons found directly in a standard operating procedure that governs this the operation of this unit and the standard operating procedure says in a couple of places page one  the swat team mandates that its members keep their equipment in a state of readiness to respond quickly to a critical incident so mr geiger i want to ask you then of the fundamental question do you agree or  not agree that there is a distinction between a job requirement and something that is integrity and indispensable to the job well i think judge that the bus case kind of did away with the requirement angle so so the while there is a distinction factually i think legally it is the plaintiffs geisha and to prove that the activities that they are performing are integral in indispensable to the principle activity that they were hired to perform so how do you reconcile them the fact that at this point something on the order of ten percent of the operators five out of fifty do not for one reason or the other keep their gear let's call it collectively they're here at home and even those who do if they're called for special duty sometimes might even need to travel from a place away from the home and finally that there was a significant time period when  they were not required to have a home i mean the city has decided to require it now i totally know no debate there but integral and indispensable things hard yes yes and i think judge the the the the fact that there was i believe the testimony of sergeant lam about several operators that kept their gear stored at home and square for a time he couldn't name any of them so i don't think that's necessarily a good fact to rely on the fact remains you know  district court relied on the fact that one operator named kaino scieno kept his rifle only at home and swear on a truck and that he had to rest of his gear the rest of the remainder the eighty pounds he took home every day and so i guess the ways that we we demonstrate aside from the standard operating procedure saying they have to be in a state of readiness this is a swat team they have to be quick it says it right there they have to be quick the standard operating procedure also says that they have to provide a rapid systematic response you've got that you know prove that they didn't do that with the truck taking the equipment out before they changed the rule and furthermore i mean just to be clear you're talking about days in which they're not called out because the city does pay them you know they are paid relevant  entity if they're called for special duty and indeed from the minute the call goes out not even the minute take it so they're they're fully compensated for time when they actually do have to pull together all the necessary equipment and go to a site well there yeah there fully come say when they have to pull it together and go to a site they're not fully compensated for keeping neg year in a state of readiness and the sorts of things employers require that people don't get paid for under the terms absolutely part of the act employers require you to come to work for example but you don't get paid for a commuter sure judge and you are correct and  a good example of what you just said is the brand versus comcast case there you have a cable repairman who take home a van they're required to check in on their company computer see what their assignments are going to be and have everything ready to go ok they don't get paid for that and and that was the ruling now we don't have i defy is there a case out there where an employee is handling as much gear and has to handle it that as these swat officers do this is at minimum eighty pounds if you add a sniper rifle into the mix and a lot of them carry sniper rifles in addition to the machine guns  you're now looking at well over one hundred dollars pounds of gear there is no case out there i would submit nationwide judge where a employee has to deal with this amount of equipment while the wait a relevant factor i mean that i don't understand sure it's relevant because you have to move multiple items that way a lot shoots from your vehicle into your home into a gun safe in the case of the machine gun and these things have to be kept under lock and key these all take time these are not small bags these are not this isn't a briefcase and there are cases out there about briefcases about about things you have to carry a shoulder bag for instance that's not this case this case are huge large bags full of gear that needs to be cared for and a machine gun at a minimum some of them have breaching shotguns some of them i mentioned earlier have sniper rifles this is a lot of stuff it takes time to deal with this mr geiger does the record reflect any type of static statement or conclusion about the extent to which a rapid response is required meaning must the swat team always be in a rapid mode or other situations where it's less than a rapid mode judg there is there when when there's a critical incident and it all call it has to be rapid and i think in the record there is there is this discussion of a one hour response time at a maximum and i believe sergeant carey august testified that that's a national standard in his deposition and that that is something that they do their best to it here too because a rapid response caps went when and eighteen there was a mass shooting at mercy hospital that was a swat officer that showed up with a rifle and and killed the shooter they have to be there quickly so getting back to  that a lot of the time that's handled by the on duty squads in the city arranges for that what you're talking about are the extraordinary circumstances where the two groups who are on duty at any given time can't handle yes and i'm also talking about you know how do how do we know that this is integral an indispensable that that unloading loading and stor we will for one the city pays them fifteen minutes of the beginning of a tour of duty and fifteen minutes at the end of a tour of duty to do just that to move their gear from their whatever vehicle they brought to home and  to if they're going out on patrol in a in one of the tacos the at they use they call them heavy weapons vehicles they but they give them fifteen minutes of the beginning at the end and the end of the tour to do exactly what they're doing when they're off duty at home exactly the same thing so why is it paid in one circumstance but not the other now so what worries me about your theory is that i think that there are many things in different lines of work that people do at home whether it's staying within a certain number of miles at home whether it's keeping you know checking emails occasionally or having a cell phone to make sure that there's no extraordinary duty you might be the kind of person who shovels snow from the roads and  it's unpredictable just as it's unpredictable for your clients when they may be needed and under the continuous workday rule if we were to say that the necessity of doing some work at home is enough to trigger the right to compensation then of course it includes all the commuting time includes everything under worked and i just think that the law seems to have drawn a tighter of mind than the one you are proposing well judge this is no mistake this is a continuous work a case in our view and that's what i meant right ok and and so so we get to the you know the district court finding that they can tried it the plaintiffs tried to store their gear and weapons at home and square and that every single member of the tactic of the swat team signed a report saying in several weeks we are taking you up on your offer city of chicago to store all of our gear and all of our weapons at home and swear we're giving you lead time because we we don't believe this is correct we don't we don't believe this is true and we don't want to endanger anybody safety so we'll give you several weeks but we're going to give you leave time we're going to store everything there and what happened what happened was the city immediately ordered these officers know you are not going to store anything here you will take your things home you will store them there and they got all of the officers now have taken vehicles to do just that nobody stores their weapons or gear at home and square nobody is allowed to store their weapons or here at home and square that the fact is it's obviously indispensable and integral to their functions of responding quickly and rapidly and systematically to critical incidents to have their things with them and having their things with them means that gear has to be in a state of readiness when they go home when they get home they have to they have to put it where it belongs where it's required to be in the case of machine gun now preachy two thousand and seventeen will be the city of chicago was basically having the swat team carry its machine guns around and you know you couldn't if you were a swat team member before they gave you a take on vehicle you couldn't stop for a parent teacher conference on the way home you couldn't stop to go to your kid's baseball game you can do any of that because the machine gun can never be unattended in the vehicle so they co opted all of these these plaintiffs vehicles for years and years and they just now they want to just kind of forget about what happened there but i fact to remind you mr geiger that your time is running down i know you wanted four minutes what you already partly used it's up to you you can continue arguing or save some time i'd like to save one minute if that's ok judge ok so watch the clock i will so the last thing i want to talk about was the case that the judge relied upon and that's ballestrini ery versus menlo park the one on the th circuit and the the court the district court came to the conclusion that like the firefighters in menlo park the swat officers here are two steps removed from doing their job and i would submit to this court that is absolutely wrong the mental part firefighters remember would get a call to volunteer for an overtime shift either at their station or at a visiting station and they could take it or they could not take it and and they kept their gear at work and their gear was nothing like the gear here as much as it was just what they call turned out equipment or bunker gear and in any event there are two steps away because they had to go your owners and me a please the court this one operators who are the plaintiffs in this case are part of a specialized police unit and the principal duties they are employed to perform include providing a tactical response to critical and high risk incidents or for the troll duties in providing dignitary protection in this case the plaintiffs are seeking compensation for other routine activities before and after their regular shi they claim they're entitled under the f l a say in the illinois minimum wage law for the time they spend during their regular commutes between their homes and the swat units headquarters at home square while transporting weapons and equipping their vehicles and for times and carrying those items between their vehicles and their homes at the end at either end of their commute but those are not activities that the plaintiffs are employed to perform and they're not integral and indispensable to their principal duties accordingly the district court correctly granted summary judgment for the city on plaintiff's claim seeking overtime compensation for their off duty activities now it's important to note and  judge would you know that this in some of your questions to mr geiger it's important to note that the off duty activities for which plaintiffs are seeking compensation here distinct from any time they spend actually spending to an off duty call ups any swat officer operator who responds to an off duty call out and a greaser participate is paid from the time of the st call that goes out seeking operators to respond through the end of that  operation so during that entire time operators on duty meaning that under those circumstances they're paid for time to carry equipment between their homes and their vehicles to travel to the sites for whatever they're called to do at the site of the incident and then for travel time afterward as well as briefings and for all of that say they are in overtime overtime compensation but what they're seeking in this case is being paid also being over paid overtime for their daily commutes and time spent caring items between their homes in their vehicle was struck and only ask you a question about standard of review i mean here's this phrase integral and indispensable to the principal activities for which they're employed and i want to know whether you think that's something that the court just decides evaluating all of the evidence in the record or whether there's question i don't recall you know any language in the case law about deference to the employer's determination of what is integral in the dispensable it is certainly something that can be and often is decided is a matter of law that it's it's so tied up with the employee's principle that it cannot be dispensed with if the employee is to carry out the duties we know in this case that it's not necessary  because as as judge would you pointed out earlier there in the in the past the practice was was different there is no question that the slot for raiders can't carry out their principle duties without bringing equipment to their homes it's been a matter of changing practice you know there are going to be pros and cons to different ways of running it's what you need in other cities they have twenty four some other cities they have twenty four hour on tuesday coverage there was testimony the past the practice of having the equipment truck take you know it requires a staff person to have all the equipment ready on that truck but it has the advantage of having everything there and ready for the operators when they get there and spend you know the considered judgment of the current slot leadership and also the operators preference that they be able to to yes and in fact part of the time they get about ninety minutes as part of each shift to to work out during their shifts so they do they are paper or keeping physically they are yes sometimes instead of doing that they keeping their equipment in a state of readiness is something that they do during their regular shift times they're given time you know to inspect their equipment to you know to clean weapons the off duty activities that we're talking about that is really just driving to and from you know between home and home and square facility and then there's a few items that they can leave stored in their vehicle when they you know if they have taken car and they take them home they have to take their night vision goggles in the camp no no c p t officer weapons in their vehicles and intended and their and their police radio but that's you know that's not a matter of maintaining those things in a state of readiness that's a matter of just bringing them into the home and not leaving them in the vehicle now plaintiffs counsel has said that there is a dispute about whether the operators are actually required to bring more than just goggles weapons and radios into their homes and in fact the testimony on that from lieutenant lamb's unequivocal that there's never been a requirement to take more than those three things in they point to why and as a standard operating procedure document that was put out in two thousand and sixteen it's actually unclear if it was put out but either way that was only a very short time before a memo from and georgists who clarified to all the swat members that the only three things that had to be taken in from their vehicles were the goggles the guns heavy lifting that had to be done and it's still it's not necessary for this what operators to do the principal activities of their job so it's not integral and indispensable but as an additional matter it from your car to your home after your commute for your commute doesn't constitute compensable work unless it's necessary asks the question because i have difficulty se obligation to take care of equipment that was somebody else's equipment that was pressed into your care that's that's correct and in the fact you know in and the fact that something is even if she acquired by an employer that's not employees at the amazon warehouse were required to go through security screenings it was something the employer absolutely required it was in the employer's interest it was important to the employer but that wasn't part of the jo job the activity for which these people are employed is the response to situations where the diplomatic protection or the other things that we see in that list and when the city has one storage policy versus another it's just making tradeoffs about the efficiency with which its swat team can perform those and  change the nature of the activities that they are performed to do and what is integral in indispensable to their now to their attention there are reasons that no one until late in personal vehicles in the past and wanted to to be paid for the use of their personal vehicles but was that in the nature of reimbursement or was that in the nature of continuous work so like were they asking for mileage for using their personal vehicles or were they saying because we're using our personal vehicles we're on the clock you know i mean i think we need to clarify the record on that mr geithner might actually be in a better position to answer that but and i don't know for i know that mr bartlett needs you know some sort of some complaints in manaus to his supervisors about this for a reason why that they should be given department vehicles i don't know about that about formal claims or any on that this orange or wouldn't your argument about the city making determinations on trade offs for efficiency would that have more traction if there was consistency if there weren't exceptions that certain swat operators were allowed to do certain things that others were not i don't i don't think so because although there is you know it's  the thought now is that the best way to do this it's fair for operators generally to have to have take on c p d vehicles to bring their rifles home you know there are there are reasons for exceptions to that particularly where you know some of us have a safe place to store a weapon at home those greater still can and do respond to call out by going to home and square and i mean i just it's sort of illustrates the nature of the tradeoffs and the fact that the job can be done in different in different ways in that there are there have been exceptions made and just quickly to mr geiger point sort of taking issue with the idea that anybody has been storing weapons at home and square they have tentatively i'm fairly testify there had  five employees plaintiff bartlett himself at times story quitman there patrick leahy said that when the vehicles were taken away i think in two thousand leben two thousand and nine that some operators started leaving equipment there so there's and the fact that the precise nature of the employee's duties is a question of fact and unfortunately that was wrongly resolved by the district court in this case also counsel mentioned in her argument that other cities have twenty four hour coverage she's wrecked chicago did not have twenty four hour coverage until two thousand and eighteen this lawsuit was filed in two thousand and fourteen that obviously shows again that having your gear with you at home in a state of readiness is integral and indispensable if you're going to respond to an incident while there is no swat coverage is that fact in the record i actually booked when i was reading these briefs to you very much thanks to both counsel the court will take the case und