Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-55622/USCOURTS-ca9-13-55622-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ANDRE CORBIN, individually and on

behalf of other members of the

public similarly situated,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

TIME WARNER ENTERTAINMENTADVANCE/NEWHOUSE PARTNERSHIP,

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 13-55622

D.C. No.

3:11-cv-01057-

GPC-RBB

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 3, 2015—Pasadena, California

Filed May 2, 2016

Before: Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, Stephen S. Trott,

and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Bybee

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2 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

SUMMARY*

Employment Compensation

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment

in favor of Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse

Partnership (“TWEAN”) in a putative class action brought by

a plaintiff TWEAN employee seeking lost compensation.

In his “rounding” claim, plaintiff alleged that TWEAN’s

compensation policy of rounding all employee time stamps to

the nearest quarter hour deprived him of earned overtime

compensation. In his “logging-in” claim, plaintiff alleged

that he was not compensated for one minute when he

mistakenly opened an auxiliary computer program before

logging into TWEAN’s timekeeping software.

The panel held that TWEAN’s rounding policy

comported with the federal rounding regulation, 29 C.F.R.

§ 785.48(b). The panel further held that TWEAN’s rounding

policy was neutral on its face and as applied to plaintiff. The

panel concluded that the district court properly interpreted

and applied the regulation, and granted summary judgment to

TWEAN.

The panel held that the district court properly granted

summary judgment to TWEAN on plaintiff’s “logging-in”

claim and the district court properly classified the one minute

of uncompensated time as de minimis. The panel held that

the district court properly considered the de minimis doctrine

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 3

even though TWEAN did not affirmatively plead it in its

answer. The panel further held that all three factors in

Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057, 1062 (9th Cir. 1984),

supported the district court’s conclusion that plaintiff’s one

minute of uncompensated time was de minimis.

The panel held that plaintiff also failed to demonstrate the

existence of a material fact to his derivative California state

law claims. In addition, the panel held that the district court

did not err by limiting consideration of plaintiff’s rounding

claim to the time period after the implementation of new

online timekeeping system. Finally, because the panel

affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

TWEAN on plaintiff’s rounding claim, the panel held that

there was no need for the district court to reconsider whether

the claim can form the basis of a viable class action

proceeding.

COUNSEL

William B. Sullivan (argued) and Eric Y. Yaeckel, Sullivan

Law Group LLP, San Diego, California, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Joseph W. Ozmer, II (argued), Michael D. Kabat, J. Scott

Carr, and Rachel E. Sankey, Wargo & French LLP, Atlanta,

Georgia, for Defendant-Appellee.

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4 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

OPINION

BYBEE, Circuit Judge:

This case turns on $15.02 and one minute. $15.02

represents the total amount of compensation that Plaintiff

Andre Corbin (“Corbin”) alleges he has lost due to his

employer’s, Defendant Time Warner EntertainmentAdvance/Newhouse Partnership (“TWEAN”), compensation

policy that rounds all employee time stamps to the nearest

quarter-hour. One minute represents the total amount of time

for which Corbin alleges he was not compensated as he once

mistakenly opened an auxiliary computer program before

clocking into TWEAN’s timekeeping software platform. 

$15.02 in lost wages and one minute of uncompensated time,

Corbin argued before the district court, entitled him to relief

under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (“FLSA”),

29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq., and various California state

employment laws.

The district court disagreed and granted summary

judgment to TWEAN. The court determined that because the

company’s rounding policy was neutral on its face and in

practice, TWEAN’s policy complied with the federal

rounding regulation, see 29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b), and Corbin’s

$15.02 in lost wages did not present an issue of material fact. 

The court also held that the one minute of uncompensated

time Corbin spent logging into an auxiliary computer

program before logginginto TWEAN’s timekeeping software

was de minimis as a matter of law.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we

affirm.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 5

I

A. Facts

TWEAN operates a call center in San Diego, California

where its employees field telephone calls from customers. 

Until May of 2010, non-exempt employees at the facility

recorded their work hours by swiping their employment

badges through a wall clock mounted at the entrance to the

call center. After May 4, 2010, TWEAN transitioned to an

online timekeeping platform, implementing a recording

system known as Kronos Connect. Kronos Connect directly

links an employee’s time stamps to a program called Avaya,

a “soft-phone system” that must be activated before

employees can begin taking customer phone calls. When an

employee logs into Avaya to begin work, he is automatically

clocked into Kronos. Similarly, when an employee logs out

of Avaya, he is automatically clocked out of Kronos. The

“Avaya/Kronos” system was designed to help prevent offthe-clock work, blocking employees from answering

customer calls unless they are properly clocked into

TWEAN’s timekeeping software.

TWEAN’s compensation policies incorporate a

“rounding” procedure that relies on the time stamps recorded

by the Avaya/Kronos system. When an employee uses

Avaya/Kronos to clock in for work, to clock in and out for

lunch, and to clock out at the end of the day, the system

rounds each time stamp recorded to the nearest quarter-hour. 

For example, an employee who clocks in at 8:07 a.m. to begin

his workday would see his wage statement reflect a clock-in

of 8:00 a.m., rounding his time to the nearest quarter-hour

and crediting him with seven minutes of work time for which

he was not actually on the clock. Similarly, an employee who

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6 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

clocks out at 5:05 p.m. to end her workday would see her

wage statement reflect a clock-out of 5:00 p.m., again

rounding her time to the nearest quarter-hour and deducting

five minutes of work time for which she was actually on the

clock. At the end of each pay period, TWEAN’s non-exempt

employees are paid in accordance with these rounded figures.

Corbin worked for TWEAN at the San Diego call center

from July 20, 2007 to June 15, 2011. Hired to answer

customer calls, Corbin was classified as a “technical support

agent,” a non-exempt position paid on an hourly basis. Like

all of TWEAN’s non-exempt employees, Corbin’s

Avaya/Kronos clock-ins and clock-outs were rounded to the

nearest quarter-hour. Since the implementation of the

Avaya/Kronos timekeeping system in May of 2010, Corbin

worked 269 shifts subject to TWEAN’s rounding policy; he

gained compensation or broke even in 58% of them. In total,

however, the parties agree that as a result of TWEAN’s

rounding policy, Corbin lost $15.02 in aggregate

compensation over the period stretching from May 5, 2010 to

his resignation on June 15, 2011. Additionally, Corbin once

logged onto an auxiliary computer program before logging

into Avaya/Kronos. Swapping this order of operations cost

him one minute of compensable time, as the minute spent

logging into the auxiliary program was not captured by the

Avaya/Kronos timekeeping system.

B. Procedural History

Corbin filed this action in the Superior Court of California

in 2011. TWEAN removed the case to federal court pursuant

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 7

to the Class Action Fairness Act. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d).1

Corbin then filed an amended complaint, alleging a collective

action pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) for violations of the

FLSA, as well as various class actions for violations of

California employment laws.

In 2012, Corbin moved to file a second amended

complaint, seeking to add several new claims, including the

rounding claim at issue in this appeal. That motion was

denied later that year, as was Corbin’s motion to certify a

class of California employees based on the claims alleged in

his first amended complaint. Corbin filed a motion for

reconsideration on the district court’s class certification order

in January of 2013. Two months later, the district court

granted TWEAN’s motion for summary judgment in its

entirety and entered final judgment in favor of TWEAN.2

II

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment

de novo. Pavoni v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 789 F.3d 1095, 1098

(9th Cir. 2015). We “must determine, viewing the evidence

in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, whether

1 Because Corbin pleaded a claim under the FLSA, a federal law, the

district court also had federal question jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1331.

2 Despite its earlier rulings that Corbin had not properly pleaded a claim

premised on TWEAN’s rounding policy, the district court ordered

supplemental briefing on the issue while considering TWEAN’s motion

for summary judgment. In its order granting TWEAN’s summary

judgment motion, the district court explained that after “careful review,”

Corbin’s first amended complaint had adequately pleaded (albeit not

successfully enough to survive summary judgment) a rounding claim. 

TWEAN does not challenge the district court’s holding on this point.

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8 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive

law and whether there are any genuine issues of material

fact.” Balint v. Carson City, 180 F.3d 1047, 1050 (9th Cir.

1999) (en banc). A “genuine issue of material fact exists

when the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return

a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Fortune Dynamic, Inc.

v. Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand Mgmt., Inc., 618 F.3d 1025,

1031 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Caneva v. Sun Cmtys.

Operating Ltd. P’ship (In re Caneva), 550 F.3d 755, 761 (9th

Cir. 2008) (as amended)).

We review a district court’s decision to grant summary

judgment prior to deciding a motion for class certification for

abuse of discretion. Wright v. Schock, 742 F.2d 541, 543–44

(9th Cir. 1984).

III

Corbin’s core claims center on two of TWEAN’s

employment practices. First, Corbin argues that TWEAN’s

rounding policy deprived him of the full amount of his earned

wages, specifically overtime compensation. We will refer to

this as the “rounding claim.” Second, Corbin alleges that

TWEAN permitted employees to load auxiliary computer

programs before clocking into the Kronos/Avaya system, a

practice, he claims, that denied him full compensation for

time spent actually working. We will refer to this as the

“logging-in” claim. Corbin raises the rounding and loggingin claims as violations under the FLSA, and these violations

also serve as the basis for Corbin’s claims under California

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 9

wage laws.3 Additionally, Corbin alleges that the district

court improperly truncated the scope of his claims by

considering only evidence post-dating TWEAN’s transition

to the Avaya/Kronos timekeeping system on May 4, 2010. 

Finally, Corbin asserts that the district court erred by

refraining from ruling on his motion for reconsideration of

the court’s earlier order denying Corbin’s motion for class

certification.

We address each contention in turn.

A. Rounding Claim

Corbin argues that TWEAN’s rounding policy violates

29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b), the federal rounding regulation,

because it is not facially neutral or neutral as applied to

Corbin. We reject this argument. However, before

addressing whether TWEAN’s rounding policy meets the

requirements of § 785.48(b), we address Corbin’s threshold

arguments that seek to undermine the validity of the rounding

timekeeping method more broadly.

 

3

 Although it is somewhat difficult to ascertain from his briefing which

California claims Corbin presses on appeal, it appears that Corbin

challenges the district court’s grant ofsummary judgment as to:California

Labor Code § 510 (failure to pay overtime compensation) and California

Labor Code § 226 (failure to provide an itemized wage statement). We

decline to consider any additional state law claims, as we “will not

ordinarily consider matters on appeal that are not specifically and

distinctly argued in appellant’s opening brief.” Miller v. Fairchild Indus.,

Inc., 797 F.2d 727, 738 (9th Cir. 1986).

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10 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

1. The Federal Rounding Regulation

For more than fifty years, a federal regulation has

endorsed the use of “‘Rounding’ practices.” See Wage and

Hour Division, Department of Labor, 26 Fed. Reg. 190, 195

(January 11, 1961). Codified at 29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b), the

current regulation reads in full:

“Rounding” practices. It has been found that

in some industries, particularly where time

clocks are used, there has been the practice for

many years of recording the employees’

starting time and stopping time to the nearest

5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or

quarter of an hour. Presumably, this

arrangement averages out so that the

employees are fully compensated for all the

time they actually work. For enforcement

purposes this practice of computing working

time will be accepted, provided that it is used

in such a manner that it will not result, over a

period of time, in failure to compensate the

employees properly for all the time they have

actually worked.

This regulation permits “employers to efficiently

calculate hours worked without imposing any burden on

employees,” offering employers a “practical method for

calculating work time” and a “neutral calculation tool for

providing full payment to employees.” See’s Candy Shops,

Inc. v. Superior Court, 210 Cal. App. 4th 889, 903 (2012). 

The federal rounding rules have long been applied to federal

claims brought pursuant to the FLSA. See, e.g., Alonzo v.

Maximus, Inc., 832 F. Supp. 2d 1122, 1126 (C.D. Cal. 2011);

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 11

Gonzalez v. Farmington Foods, Inc., 296 F. Supp. 2d 912,

932–33 (N.D. Ill. 2003); East v. Bullock’s Inc., 34 F. Supp. 2d

1176, 1184 (D. Ariz. 1998). And, in 2012, in a thorough and

thoughtful treatment, the California Court of Appeal

confirmed that the federal rounding rule also applies to

California state labor claims, so long as a company’s

“rounding-over-time policy is neutral, both facially and as

applied.” See’s Candy, 210 Cal. App. 4th at 903; see also id.

at 900–07.4

We are not aware of any published decision by a court of

appeals addressing the rounding regulation.5 District courts,

4 As noted by the See’s Candy court, the California Supreme Court has

not yet weighed in on the applicability of the federal rounding regulation

to California state wage laws. 210 Cal. App. 4th at 901. However, the

California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”)—“the

agency empowered to enforce California’s labor laws”—has “adopted the

federal regulation in its manual.” Id. at 902 (citing to DLSE Manual

§§ 47.1, 47.2). Because “there is no convincing evidence that the

[California Supreme Court] would decide differently” than the California

Court of Appeal or the DLSE, we must follow See’s Candy in applying the

federal rounding rule to Corbin’s state wage claims. Vestar Dev. II, LLC

v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 249 F.3d 958, 960 (9thCir. 2001) (quoting Lewis

v. Tel. Emps. Credit Union, 87 F.3d 1537, 1545 (9th Cir. 1996)). In any

case, Corbin does not challenge the district court’s application of the

federal rounding regulation to California state wage claims.

5 We are aware that in Gillings v. Time Warner Cable LLC, a panel of

our court held, in an unpublished decision, that summary judgment on a

rounding claim was inappropriate because two of the four plaintiffs were

not credited “with work that they had actually performed.” 583 F. App’x

712, 715 (9th Cir. 2014). This suggested, the panel reasoned, that the

defendant’s rounding policy was not neutral in its application because not

every employee gained (or broke even on) compensation over the

employment window at issue. Id. at 716. The panel, however, went on

to affirm summary judgment as to the other two employees’ rounding

claims because “they did not lose any wages due to the policy.” Id.

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12 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

however, have weighed in quite extensively, regularly

upholding the validity of employers’ neutral rounding

practices. For example, in Alonzo, 832 F. Supp. 2d at 1126,

the court found that an employer complies with the federal

regulation if it “applies a consistent rounding policy that, on

average, favors neither overpayment nor underpayment.” 

Similarly, in East, 34 F. Supp. 2d at 1184, the court found

that because “[d]uring the same time period in which [the

plaintiff] was ‘underpaid,’” she was “also ‘overpaid,’” the

employer’s “rounding practices average[d] out sufficiently to

comply with § 785.48(b).” The employer’s rounding

practice, the court held, “may not credit employees for all the

time actually worked, but it also credits employees for time

not actually worked.” Id.

Here, Corbin alleges that if an employee loses any

compensation due to the operation of a company’s rounding

policy, that policy should be found to violate the federal

The decision, because it is unpublished, is not binding on this panel.

See Reynolds Metals Co. v. Ellis, 202 F.3d 1246, 1249 (9th Cir. 2000). 

We often issue such dispositions in cases that we do not think sufficiently

novel or important to warrant a published opinion. Significantly, our

memorandum dispositions typically do not undertake a careful rendition

of the facts. See generally Alex Kozinski & Stephen Reinhardt, Please

Don’t Cite This! Why We Don’t Allow Citation to Unpublished

Dispositions, CAL. LAWYER, June 2000, at 43, 43 (explaining that a

memorandum disposition “need not state the facts,” and can “often be

accomplished in a few sentences”). Thus, it is conceivable that there are

facts supporting the conclusion we reached in Gillings that are not

included in the disposition. To the extent that Gillings conflicts with this

decision, we disagree with it.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 13

rounding regulation.6In other words, Corbin argues that

unless every employee gains or breaks even over every pay

period or set of pay periods analyzed, an employer’s rounding

policy violates the federal rounding regulation, a contention

that would serve to wholly invalidate the rounding method as

an acceptable form of timekeeping. The district court was

right to reject such a claim.

First, Corbin’s interpretation reads into the federal

rounding regulation an “individual employee” requirement

that does not exist. The regulation instead explicitly notes

that it applies to “employees” and contemplates wages for the

time “they” actually work. 29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b) (emphasis

added). If the rounding policy was meant to be applied

individually to each employee to ensure that no employee

ever lost a single cent over a pay period, the regulation would

have said as much.

Second, Corbin’s reading of the regulation completely

misunderstands the purpose of a rounding policy. Employers

use rounding policies to calculate wages efficiently;

sometimes, in any given pay period, employees come out

ahead and sometimes they come out behind, but the policy is

meant to average out in the long-term. If an employer’s

rounding practice does not permit both upward and

downward rounding, then the system is not neutral and “will

. . . result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the

employees properly for all the time they have actually

worked.” Id. Such an arrangement “[p]resumably” does not

“average[] out.” Id.; see also Gonzalez, 296 F. Supp. 2d at

6 As a reminder, the parties agree that Corbin lost $15.02 in

compensable wages after TWEAN implemented the Avaya/Kronossystem

in May of 2010.

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14 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

932–33 & n.31 (Employees claimed they were systematically

harmed by defendant’s rounding system because they could

not clock in more than seven minutes prior to a shift and

because management manually edited the employees’ timepunches; the claim presented a genuine issue of fact for trial).

Corbin’s argument, if accepted, would undercut the

purpose and would gut the effectiveness of a rounding policy. 

In fact, Corbin’s preferred interpretation would require

employers to engage in the very mathematical calculations

that the federal rounding regulation serves to avoid. The

California Court of Appeal has previously rejected this

precise contention, explaining that by the terms of Corbin’s

argument, employers could only “lawfully use the rounding

method . . . if they engage[d] in a ‘mini actuarial process at

the time of payroll’ and reconcile[d] the rounding with actual

time punches.” See’s Candy, 210 Cal. App. 4th at 904

(quoting plaintiff’s argument). Put differently, the employers

would have to “un-round” every employee’s time stamps for

every pay period to verify that the rounding policy had

benefitted every employee. If that was the case, why would

any employer ever implement a rounding policy at all? The

proper interpretation of the federal rounding regulation

cannot be one that renders it entirely useless.

We also note that Corbin’s preferred interpretation of the

federal rounding regulation unfairly rewards strategic

pleading, permitting plaintiffs to selectivelyedit their relevant

employment windows to include only pay periods in which

they may have come out behind while chopping off pay

periods in which they may have come out ahead. For

example, consider a hypothetical employee who came out

behind in January by ten minutes and fifteen dollars, but

came out ahead in February by twelve minutes and eighteen

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 15

dollars. Even though, “over [this full] period of time,”

§ 785.48(b), this worker gained two minutes and three

dollars, under Corbin’s theory, the employee could include

only the month of January in his pleading and claim that his

employer’s policy deprived him of full compensation. We do

not believe that the legality of an employer’s rounding policy

turns on the vagaries of clever pleading.

Finally, Corbin argues that because overtime minutes are

compensated at a higher rate than regular-time minutes, the

district court improperly characterized the rounding statute as

neutral. In California, employees are entitled to overtime

compensation at a “rate of no less than one and one-half times

the regular rate of pay for an employee” for time worked

beyond eight hours in a single day or forty hours over a

workweek. Cal. Lab. Code § 510(a). Because of this

variance in compensation rates, Corbin argues, not all

rounded time is created equally and the district court erred by

finding otherwise.7

7 To illustrate Corbin’s argument, consider an employee with a 9:00 a.m.

to 5:00 p.m. workday, compensated at $60 per hour, or $1 per minute. 

Should the employee leave work at 4:57 p.m., his time stamp would round

to 5:00 p.m. and he would be credited with three minutes, or $3, of time

he did not actually work. Should the employee leave work at 5:03 p.m.,

his time stamp would again round to 5:00 p.m., and he would lose three

minutes, but rather than losing three minutes of compensable time worth

$3, he would lose three minutes of compensable time worth $4.50 due to

the overtime premium.

Of course, Corbin’s argument depends on his beginning work

precisely at 9:00 a.m. and working a full eight hours of compensable time. 

If Corbin arrived at work at 9:03 a.m. (rounded back to 9:00 a.m.), he is,

of course, not entitled to any overtime pay for clocking out at 5:03 p.m.

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16 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

We disagree for three reasons. First, Corbin offers no

case support for the proposition that California’s law is at

odds with the federal rounding regulation and cites to no

precedent that endorses his argument. Second, the only case

to address Corbin’s argument, See’s Candy, explicitly

rejected it. 210 Cal. App. 4th at 905–06. There, the

California Court of Appeal explained that the federal

rounding regulation had long successfully coexisted with

FLSA’s own rule mandating overtime pay after forty hours of

work over the course of a week. Id. at 906. “There is no

analytical difference,” the court pointed out, “between

rounding in the context of daily overtime and rounding in the

context of weekly overtime.” Id. We agree. Over the long

term, TWEAN’s rounding system is neutral, favoring neither

employer nor employee. Third, TWEAN’s rounding policy

allows employees to gain overtime compensation just as

easily as it causes them to lose it. For example, an employee

who clocks in for eight hours and eight minutes of work in a

day, will see those eight minutes rounded up to fifteen

minutes—all of which will be compensated at the overtime

rate.8 Like the California Court of Appeal, we can discern no

reason to analyze overtime minutes any differently than

regular-time minutes, and the district court committed no

error by treating them the same.

8

Indeed, if this hypothetical employee clocked in seven minutes late for

work, he would still be credited with fifteen minutes of overtime—even

though, in fact, he only worked one minute of overtime. In a neutral

rounding system, employees stand to gain as well as lose time. The

rounding rule simply presumes that, over time, it will all even out.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 17

2. TWEAN’s rounding policy is neutral on its face and

as applied to Corbin

TWEAN’s rounding policy passes muster. First,

TWEAN’s policy is facially neutral, as TWEAN rounds all

employee time punches to the nearest quarter-hour without an

eye towards whether the employer or the employee is

benefitting from the rounding. TWEAN’s policy is not the

sort that “systematically undercompensates employees” by

“only rounding down,” See’s Candy, 210 Cal. App. 4th at 902

(internal quotation marks, citations, and alterations omitted);

rather, Corbin can just as easily bank unworked minutes as he

can lose worked minutes. TWEAN’s system is mechanical

and does not depend on managerial oversight—indeed, all

time punches are controlled by the Avaya/Kronos

timekeeping system and are fully walled off from supervisory

editing.

Second, Corbin’s own compensation records demonstrate

that TWEAN’s rounding policy is neutral in application. 

Sometimes Corbin gained minutes and compensation, and

sometimes Corbin lost minutes and compensation. In total,

from the time TWEAN implemented the Avaya/Kronos

system to the time he resigned his employment with

TWEAN, Corbin banked three minutes of unworked time and

lost $15.02. Those numbers, however, fluctuated from pay

period to pay period, and given that Corbin consistently

gained time and compensation in the final pay periods

analyzed, a few more pay periods of employment may have

tilted the total time/compensation tally in the other direction

(Corbin, for example, gained both time and compensation in

eight of his last ten pay periods.). TWEAN’s rounding policy

operated exactly as the federal rounding regulation intended,

and Corbin has not shown the existence of a material fact as

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18 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

to whether or not, “over a period of time,” he was not

properly compensated for his work. 29 C.F.R. § 785.48(b).

We join the consensus of district courts that have

analyzed this issue, and find that TWEAN’s rounding policy

comports with the federal rounding regulation. See, e.g.,

Alonzo, 832 F. Supp. 2d at 1126; East, 34 F. Supp. 2d at

1184. Mandating that every employee must gain or break

even over every pay period misreads the text of the federal

rounding regulation and vitiates the purpose and effectiveness

of using rounding as a timekeeping method. The district

court properly interpreted and applied the regulation, and we

affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment as to

Corbin’s rounding claim.

B. Logging-In Claim

Corbin alleges that TWEAN did not properly compensate

him for the one minute he spent logging into an auxiliary

computer program before clocking into Avaya/Kronos. 

Corbin points to one example of an uncompensated “log-in

minute” over the course of his employment at TWEAN: On

March 19, 2011, Corbin logged into an auxiliary program

called “AAD” at 8:28 a.m. and did not log into Avaya/Kronos

until 8:29 a.m., a loss of one minute of compensable time.

TWEAN argues—and the district court determined—that

this single minute amounted to non-recoverable de minimis

time. Corbin challenges this holding on two grounds: First,

Corbin argues that because TWEAN did not plead the de

minimis doctrine as an affirmative defense, it cannot later be

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 19

asserted by TWEAN to defeat Corbin’s logging-in claim.9

Second, Corbin claims that even if the de minimis doctrine

could be properly considered, the district court erred in

applying the doctrine to the facts before it. Neither

contention has merit.

If a party seeks to assert an affirmative defense, the party

“must affirmatively state” that defense in a responsive

pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c)(1). Rule 8 lists a series of

affirmative defenses—estoppel, laches, res judicata, and

statute of frauds, to name a few—that must be explicitly

asserted in a responsive pleading; the de minimis doctrine is

nowhere to be found on that list. Id.; see also Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b) (listing additional defenses that must be immediately

raised; also not listing the de minimis doctrine). Corbin

points us to a district court case that offhandedly refers to the

de minimis doctrine as an “affirmative defens[e],” see Farris

v. Cty. of Riverside, 667 F. Supp. 2d 1151, 1154 (C.D. Cal.

2009) (listing the “De Minimis Doctrine” as the “Eighth

Affirmative Defense”), but cannot offer any case that

requires defendants to plead the de minimis doctrine as an

affirmative defense.

Nor can we find any precedent mandating affirmative

pleading ourselves. Rather, the United States Supreme Court

refers to the de minimis doctrine as a “rule” and does not

suggest that it must be affirmatively pleaded by a defendant

before being properly applied by a court. See Anderson v. Mt.

Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 692, 694 (1946)

(detailing the “application of a de minimis rule” and

9 TWEAN does not contest that it did not plead the de minimis doctrine

as an affirmative defense in its answer to Corbin’s first amended

complaint.

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20 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

remanding to the lower court to give “due consideration to the

de minimis doctrine”) (emphasis added). We have followed

the Supreme Court’s lead, similarly referring to the de

minimis doctrine as a “rule” or “[d]octrine” and not as an

affirmative defense. See Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d

1057, 1062 (9th Cir. 1984) (referring to the application of the

“de minimis rule”). And the federal regulation codifying the

de minimis doctrine follows suit. The de minimis “rule,” as

the regulation terms it, permits “insubstantial or insignificant

periods of time beyond the scheduled working hours” to be

“disregarded,” but does not require the rule to be

affirmatively pleaded in an initial responsive pleading. 

29 C.F.R. § 785.47.

We think these guideposts offer the better characterization

of the de minimis rule. Often evidence that a particular

consequence or fact is de minimis will not be evident from the

face of the complaint, but will only emerge with discovery. 

We do not think parties should be prevented from making

arguments they could not have anticipated. Accordingly, we

reject Corbin’s argument and hold that the district court

properly considered the de minimis doctrine even though

TWEAN did not affirmatively plead it in its answer.10

10 Even if TWEAN was required to affirmatively plead the de minimis

doctrine, we have held that “absent prejudice to the plaintiff,” an

“affirmative defense may be plead for the first time in a motion for

summary judgment.” Ledo Fin. Corp. v. Summers, 122 F.3d 825, 827 (9th

Cir. 1997); see also Simmons v. Navajo Cty., Ariz., 609 F.3d 1011, 1023

(9th Cir. 2010) (same). Here, Corbin noted in a filing from April

2012—five months before TWEAN filed the instant motion for summary

judgment—that he was aware that TWEAN sought to support the

“proposition” that Corbin’s “logging-in” claim could be classified as “de

minimis.” Given this advanced notice, TWEAN’s reliance on the de

minimis doctrine at the summary judgment stage was not an “ambush[]”

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 21

Turning to the application of the de minimis doctrine, the

Supreme Court has long held that, “in light of the realities of

the industrial world,” a “few seconds or minutes of work

beyond the scheduled working hours . . . may be

disregarded.” Anderson, 328 U.S. at 692; see also 29 C.F.R.

§ 785.47 (citing to Anderson and explaining that “failure to

count” a “few seconds or minutes” can be justified by

“industrial realities”). “Split-second absurdities” in the

recording of employees’ work time are “not justified by the

actualities of working conditions or by the policy of the Fair

Labor Standards Act.” Anderson, 328 U.S. at 692. Rather, it

is “only when an employee is required to give up a

substantial measure of his time and effort that compensable

working time is involved.” Id. (emphasis added).

Applying Anderson, we have explained that as a “general

rule, employees cannot recover for otherwise compensable

time if it is de minimis,” pointing out that the “de minimisrule

is concerned with the practical administrative difficulty of

recording small amounts of time for payroll purposes.”

Lindow, 738 F.2d at 1062.11

nor did TWEAN gain a “tactical advantage . . . by the late filing.” Ledo,

122 F.3d at 827. Accordingly, TWEAN’s assertion of the de minimis

doctrine in its motion for summary judgment did not prejudice Corbin, and

the district court properly considered it.

11 To the extent we must apply the federal de minimis doctrine to

Corbin’s California state wage claims, we note that the California

Supreme Court has not yet passed on the applicability of the de minimis

doctrine to California wage claims. However, the California Court of

Appeal has applied the federal de minimis standard to a state wage claim,

see Gomez v. Lincare, Inc., 173 Cal. App. 4th 508, 527–28 (2009), and the

California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) has also

adopted the de minimis doctrine, expressly citing toAnderson and Lindow,

see DLSE Manual § 47.2.1 (2010) (available at http://www.dir.ca.gov/

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22 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

To determine if otherwise compensable time is properly

classified as de minimis, in Lindow we established a threeprong test, instructing courts to “consider (1) the practical

administrative difficulty of recording the additional time;

(2) the aggregate amount of compensable time; and (3) the

regularity of the additional work.” Id. at 1063. In Lindow,

plaintiff employees alleged that they were required to arrive

prior to “the start of their scheduled shifts” in order to review

a shift log book “regarding previous shift activities and plant

conditions,” and to “exchange information and clarify log

entries” with employees departing from an earlier shift. Id.

at 1059. Despite spending, on average, “about 7 to 8 minutes

per day” on these uncompensated tasks over a period of three

years, id. at 1059–60, we nonetheless determined that this

time was de minimis and non-compensable, id. at 1063–64. 

We held that because employees “did not always” read the

log book or exchange information before a shift, “the

administrative difficulty of recording the time” and

“monitoring this pre-shift activity” was high. Id. at 1064

(emphasis added). Moreover, we explained, even though the

plaintiffs’ “aggregate claim may be [a] substantial” amount

dlse/dlsemanual/dlse_enfcmanual.pdf). The DLSE language tracks the

federal standard precisely, explaining that the de minimis rule applies

“where there are uncertain and indefinite periods of time involved of a few

seconds or minutes duration, and where the failure to count such time is

due to considerations justified by industrial realities” and “practical

administrative matter[s].” Id. Because “there is no convincing evidence

that the [California Supreme Court] would decide differently” than the

California Court of Appeal or the DLSE, we must follow Gomez in

applying the federal de minimis doctrine to Corbin’s state wage claims. 

Vestar Dev. II, 249 F.3d at 960 (quoting Lewis, 87 F.3d at 1545). In any

case, Corbin does not appeal the district court’s application of the federal

de minimis doctrine in deciding state wage claims.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 23

of minutes, the “irregularity” of the work counseled in favor

of finding the time de minimis. Id.

Here, all three factors of the Lindow test support the

district court’s conclusion that Corbin’s one minute of

uncompensated time accumulated by logging into an

auxiliary computer program before logging into the

Avaya/Kronos timekeeping program was de minimis. First,

the practical administrative burden on TWEAN to crossreference every employee’s log-in/out patterns is quite high. 

To do so, TWEAN would have to double-check four time

stamps (clocking in/out for work; clocking in/out for lunch)

for each employee on each day on the off-chance that an

employee accidentally loaded an auxiliary program like AAD

before loading Avaya/Kronos. Indeed, Corbin’s argument

that TWEAN should have done such an analysis would

require TWEAN to undermine its policy prohibiting off-theclock work by proactively searching out and compensating

violations. Moreover, Corbin’s contention that the de

minimis doctrine does not apply because TWEAN could

ascertain the exact log-in/out times by scouring its computer

records is baseless; the de minimis doctrine is designed to

allow employers to forego just such an arduous task.

Second, the amount of compensable time at issue here is

only one minute. Though there is “no precise amount of

time” that courts have labeled de minimis per se, “[m]ost

courts have found daily periods of approximately 10 minutes

de minimis even though otherwise compensable.” Id. at 1062. 

The claim at issue here is far less than the claim classified as

de minimis in Lindow (Corbin’s total of one minute of

uncompensated time over multiple years of employment is

roughly an eighth of each employee’s claim of

uncompensated time for a single day in Lindow), and

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24 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

represents a minuscule amount of time when considered over

Corbin’s multi-year employment tenure. Accordingly, we

find that this factor weighs heavily in TWEAN’s favor.

Finally, the uncompensated time at issue here is not

“regular” at all—it was the result of Corbin’s violation of a

company policy mandating that all work activities be on the

clock. Indeed, the scarcity of examples to which Corbin can

refer indicates that this practice does not occur with

“regularity.” Corbin explained in his deposition that he knew

TWEAN prohibited off-the-clock work and that his standard

practice was to log into Avaya/Kronos before booting up any

auxiliary programs. And an analysis of Corbin’s computer

log-in records confirms that aside from the instance outlined

above, Corbin faithfully complied with that standard practice

over the course of his employment: The vast majority of time,

Corbin followed TWEAN’s employment policy and logged

into Avaya/Kronos before logging into any other programs or

beginning any other work.

Because the Lindow factors uniformly lean in favor of

TWEAN, the district court properly classified the one minute

of uncompensated time as de minimis and appropriately

granted summary judgment to TWEAN on Corbin’s

“logging-in” claim.

C. Limiting Corbin’s Claims to the Post-May 4, 2010 Period

Corbin alleges that the district court improperly truncated

the relevant employment window by granting summary

judgment on all claims pertaining to hours worked before

May 4, 2010—the date TWEAN transitioned from a wallclock timekeeping system to the Avaya/Kronos online

timekeeping system. This artificial reduction in the relevant

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 25

employment period, he argues, allowed “hundreds of dollars

in damages” to go unconsidered. Specifically, Corbin alleges

that he was not given a full and fair opportunity to address the

impact of the change of timekeepingmethods on his rounding

claim,12arguing that TWEAN never raised this issue and that

the district court shortened his claim sua sponte. TWEAN

responds that it did raise the pre-May 4, 2010 issue and that

Corbin had an opportunity to respond. Additionally,

TWEAN notes that given the difference in timekeeping

methods, Corbin’s rounding claim could not be accurately

adjudicated under the wall-clock system.

TWEAN has the better of the argument. First, Corbin’s

operative complaint onlydiscusses the Avaya/Kronos system;

he never addresses how a combination of TWEAN’s wallclock timekeeping system and its rounding policy deprived

him of wages.

Moreover, Corbin had multiple opportunities to explain

to the district court how and why his rounding claim should

apply to the pre-May 4, 2010 timekeeping system, but never

did so. As a “general rule, a district court may not sua sponte

grant summary judgment on a claim without giving the losing

party . . . an opportunity to present new evidence,” United

States v. Grayson, 879 F.2d 620, 625 (9th Cir. 1989), and a

“full and fair opportunity to ventilate the issues involved in

the motion,” Cool Fuel, Inc. v. Connett, 685 F.2d 309, 312

(9th Cir. 1982). Here, the district court did just that,

explaining to the parties at a hearing on TWEAN’s motion for

summary judgment held more than a month before it issued

12 Corbin recognizes that his logging-in claim has no applicability prior

to May 4, 2010, as it was necessarily dependent on the existence of the

Avaya/Kronos timekeeping system.

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26 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

its ruling that it was “prepared to grant summary judgment as

to any claims to recover for allegations prior to May 4 of

2010, which is the time frame that the employer went from

the Kronos card-swipe system to the Kronos/Avaya phone

system for clocking in.” Corbin, despite being afforded the

opportunity to respond, did not object to the pre-May 4 cutoff in his supplemental briefing on the very rounding claim at

issue here. In light of the district court’s pointed statements

and requests, Corbin should have been well aware that he had

an opportunity to respond to the truncating of the claims

period. He made no such response.

Additionally, there is no genuine issue of material fact as

to the applicability of Corbin’s rounding claim to TWEAN’s

pre-May 4, 2010 timekeeping system. Corbin explained in

his deposition that after clocking in at the wall-clock, he had

a “five-minute grace period . . . to get to [his] desk and start

up for the day.” As Corbin’s rounding claim turned on a very

precise calculation of whether each individual employment

minute was clocked in, rounded, and/or actually spent

working, a nebulous daily five-minute period where Corbin

perhaps went right to his desk to begin working or perhaps

spent the time socializing would be impossible to analyze,

especially after multiple years have passed. See Alonzo,

832 F. Supp. 2d at 1128–29 (refusing to sustain a rounding

claim when time records show only that plaintiffs “may have

been present on Defendant’s premises but not engaged in

work activities”); see also See’s Candy, 210 Cal. App. 4th at

907–08 (same).

The district court did not err in granting summary

judgment as to Corbin’s pre-May 4, 2010 rounding claims.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 27

D. California State Claims

To the extent that Corbin properly raised challenges on

appeal to the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

TWEAN on his state law claims, see supra n.3, those

challenges are denied.

California Labor Code § 510(a) explains that “[a]ny work

in excess of eight hours in one workday and any work in

excess of 40 hours in any one workweek . . . shall be

compensated at the rate of no less than one and one-half times

the regular rate of pay for an employee.” Cal. Lab. Code

§ 510(a). This claim is derivative of the rounding claim

analyzed above, and for the same reasons, we find no triable

issue of material fact. See supra pp. 15–18; see also See’s

Candy, 210 Cal. App. 4th at 906.

California Labor Code § 226 guarantees each employee

an “accurate itemized statement in writing showing (1) gross

wages earned, [and] (2) total hours worked by the employee.” 

Cal. Lab. Code § 226(a). Corbin argues that because

TWEAN rounded his time stamps and did not compensate

one minute of off-the-clock time spent booting up auxiliary

computer programs, his wage statements did not accurately

set forth his wages and hours worked. Because we uphold the

validity of TWEAN’s rounding policy and have found the

one cited instance of off-the-clock work to be de minimis,

Corbin’s § 226 claim fails. The district court properly

granted summary judgment on this claim.

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E. Motion for Reconsideration of Order Denying Class

Certification

Finally, Corbin requests that we remand his rounding

claim to the district court for a class certification inquiry. 

Because we hold that the district court properly granted

summary judgment to TWEAN as to Corbin’s individual

rounding claim, there is no need to remand this case to the

district court for further proceedings.

The procedural history of this case is convoluted and

warrants some discussion. On June 10, 2011, Corbin filed his

first amended complaint in district court. This complaint did

not explicitly plead a rounding claim. On May 18, 2012,

Corbin moved to file a second amended complaint, seeking

to add several new claims including the rounding claim at

issue here. Three days later, on May 21, 2012, Corbin filed

a motion seeking to certify a class of California-based

employees as to both the rounding claim and the “logging-in”

claim.13 Corbin’s motion to file a second amended complaint

was denied on October 9, 2012, and on December 18, 2012,

the district court denied Corbin’s motion for class

certification. The court explicitly addressed and denied class

certification for the “logging-in” claim, but determined that

as the rounding claim was not pleaded on the face of Corbin’s

first amended complaint—still the operative complaint in the

case—it would not consider the rounding claim’s viability for

class certification.

13 See Plaintiff’s Memo. of Points & Authorities in Support of Plaintiffs’

Mot. for Class Cert. at 55-1, p.1, Waine-Golston v. Time Warner(No. 11-

cv-01057) (May 21, 2012). Corbin also sought class certification as to

additional claims not at issue in this appeal. Id.

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CORBIN V. TIME WARNER 29

On January 2, 2013, Corbin filed a motion seeking

reconsideration of the district court’s order denying class

certification. Corbin (somewhat confusingly) argued that a

rounding claim was implied in his first amended complaint all

along, and that his later effort to affirmatively plead the

rounding claim via an amended complaint was nothing more

than a “professional courtesy” to TWEAN.14 As such, Corbin

argued, his rounding claim was properly pleaded and

warranted consideration for class certification.

In its order granting TWEAN’s summary judgment

motion, the district court explained that “[a]fter a careful

review of the first amended complaint,” Corbin had properly

alleged that “Defendant failed to pay employees for overtime

compensation based on Defendant’s rounding policy.” The

district court considered the rounding claim on its merits,

proceeded to grant summary judgment for TWEAN, and

entered final judgment in favor of TWEAN.

Whatever the answer to Corbin’s pleaded-or-not-pleaded

argument, the district court’s summary judgment ruling on

the merits of Corbin’s individual rounding claim fully moots

the need for any further steps to be taken below. As

explained above, see supra pp. 17–18, the district court

properly granted summary judgment on Corbin’s rounding

claim. That rounding claim formed the basis of Corbin’s

motion for reconsideration—Corbin wanted the district court

to certify the rounding claim as a class action. If the rounding

claim is without merit as applied to Corbin, it follows that the

district court need not inquire as to whether that meritless

14 See Plaintiff’s Mot. for Reconsideration of the Court’s Order Denying

Class Cert. at 92-3, p. 2, Waine-Golston v. Time Warner (No. 11-cv01057) (Jan. 2, 2013).

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30 CORBIN V. TIME WARNER

claim should form the basis of a class action. See, e.g.,

Wright, 742 F.2d at 545–46 (affirming a district court’s

decision to decline to rule on a class certification motion after

granting summary judgment to defendants “where

considerations of fairness and economy [so] dictate”); Boyle

v. Madigan, 492 F.2d 1180, 1181–82 (9th Cir. 1974) (finding

dismissal of action before ruling on class certification was

“the proper course to follow” because the “named plaintiffs

[had] failed to state a claim in themselves for the relief they

seek”); see also J&R Marketing, SEP v. Gen. Motors Corp.,

549 F.3d 384, 390 (6th Cir. 2008) (explaining that “[i]f it is

found, prior to class certification, that the named plaintiffs’

individual claims are without merit, then dismissal is

proper”). In other words, the district court has no need to

entertain Corbin’s attempt to certify a class without a claim. 

Accordingly,Corbin’s request for reconsideration of his class

certification motion is moot, and there is no further action for

the district court to take.

IV

Corbin has failed to demonstrate the existence of a

material fact as to his rounding claim, his logging-in claim, or

his derivative state claims. Additionally, the district court did

not err by limiting consideration of Corbin’s rounding claim

to the time period after the implementation of the

Avaya/Kronos timekeeping system. Finally, because we

affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

TWEAN on Corbin’s rounding claim, there is no need for the

district court to consider whether that claim can form the

basis of a viable class action proceeding.

AFFIRMED.

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