Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-24-01046/USCOURTS-ca3-24-01046-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 

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PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________

Nos. 24-1046, 24-1059

_______________

SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT

OF LABOR,

 Cross-Appellant (No. 24-1059)

v.

EAST PENN MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC.,

 Appellant (No. 24-1046)

_______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 5:18-cv-01194)

District Judge: Honorable Gene E.K. Pratter

_______________

Argued: September 23, 2024 (No. 24-1046)

Submitted: September 23, 2024 (No. 24-1059)

Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges

(Filed: December 19, 2024)

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Michael J. Mueller [ARGUED]

Evangeline C. Paschal

Perie Reiko Koyama

HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP

2200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20037

Tonya M. Gray

HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP

1445 Ross Avenue

Suite 3700

Dallas, TX 75202

Thomas Vanaskie

STEVENS & LEE, P.C.

425 Biden Street

Scranton, PA 18503

Daniel B. Huyett

STEVENS & LEE, P.C.

111 N. Sixth Street

Reading, PA 19601

 Counsel for Appellant (No. 24-1046)

Jesse Z. Grauman [ARGUED]

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

DIVISION OF FAIR LABOR STANDARDS

Room N2716

200 Constitution Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20210

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Jennifer L. Stocker

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR

200 Constitution Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20210

Counsel for Cross-Appellant (No. 24-1059)

_______________

OPINION OF THE COURT

_______________

BIBAS, Circuit Judge.

Hourly employees earn hourly pay. East Penn Manufacturing tries to dodge this basic requirement. First, it claims that 

employees bear the burden of proving that their unpaid working time was more than de minimis (trivial). And second, it 

claims that employers need pay only for the reasonable time it 

takes to complete assigned tasks, not the actual time. Not so. 

Because the District Court correctly rejected both claims as 

well as various other ones, we will affirm.

I. EAST PENN DID NOT FULLY PAY WORKERS

FOR CHANGING AND SHOWERING

East Penn makes and recycles lead-acid batteries. Because 

that work involves lead and other hazards, some workers must 

wear uniforms and shower after their shifts. The uniform is a 

T-shirt and work pants. Many workers must also wear protective equipment, like safety glasses and shoes; some must use 

hard hats and respirators too.

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Until 2003, East Penn did not pay hourly workers for time 

they spent changing or showering. That year, it started giving 

workers a five-minute grace period at the start of each shift to 

dress and get to their workstations, plus five minutes at the end 

to undress and shower. In 2016, it doubled the post-shift grace 

period to ten minutes. But it did not record how much time 

workers actually spent changing and showering.

The government sued East Penn under the Fair Labor 

Standards Act for failing to pay employees for all time spent 

changing and showering. 29 U.S.C. §§207, 211(c), 

215(a)(2), (5). As part of the suit, the government hired an 

expert, Dr. Robert Radwin, who estimated that workers averaged 15.6 minutes dressing pre-shift and 11 minutes undressing and showering—more time than they were paid for. 

At summary judgment, both sides agreed that changing and 

showering are “integral and indispensable” to the workers’ 

principal activities. App. 148 (quoting Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 

U.S. 247, 256 (1956)). So the District Court granted summary 

judgment on that issue to the government and told East Penn

that it had to pay employees for that time. Steiner, 350 U.S. at 

256. (Though East Penn challenges Steiner, it recognizes that 

precedent binds us.) At trial, the jury found that East Penn 

owed 11,780 hourly uniformed workers roughly $22.25 million in backpay. The District Court declined to award liquidated damages.

East Penn appeals, and the government cross-appeals the 

denial of liquidated damages. We will affirm across the board.

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II. EMPLOYERS BEAR THE BURDEN TO PROVE THAT

UNPAID TIME IS DE MINIMIS

The District Court instructed the jury that East Penn bore 

the burden of proving that any unpaid time was “trivial, minor, 

immaterial, too small to be meaningful or worth the effort, to 

be taxed, measured, or counted.” App. 427. East Penn challenges that instruction. We review claims that a jury instruction 

misstated the law de novo. Franklin Prescriptions, Inc. v. N.Y. 

Times Co., 424 F.3d 336, 338 (3d Cir. 2005). This instruction 

was right.

Though the Fair Labor Standards Act says nothing about 

excluding trivial time, courts have recognized an atextual de 

minimis exception. Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 

U.S. 680, 692 (1946), superseded by statute on other grounds

as recognized in Carter v. Panama Canal Co., 463 F.2d 1289, 

1293 (D.C. Cir. 1972). The line between negligible and material time is hazy. Employers must pay workers for “giv[ing] up 

a substantial measure of [their] time and effort,” but not for 

“only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled 

working hours.” Id.

In the absence of a clear statutory directive, when deciding 

who bears the burden of proving a statutory defense, we consider five factors. Evankavitch v. Green Tree Servicing, LLC, 

793 F.3d 355, 361 (3d Cir. 2015). Because the de minimis defense 

is atextual, these factors do not fit perfectly, so we adapt them 

as needed. Applying them, we hold that the burden of proving 

the de minimis defense belongs on the employer.

Most importantly, we consider whether the doctrine is 

“framed as an exception to a statute’s general prohibition or an 

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element of a prima facie case.” Id. at 361. Because the Act does 

not mention a de minimis defense, we cannot look for answers 

in the statutory text. But we can ask whether the doctrine overlaps with the elements of the plaintiff’s case. See In re Sterten, 

546 F.3d 278, 284–85 (3d Cir. 2008). It does not. The de minimis doctrine, like other affirmative defenses, “will defeat the 

plaintiff’s or prosecution’s claim, even if all the allegations in 

the complaint are true.” Affirmative Defense, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024). That suggests that the defendant bears 

the burden of proof.

The other Evankavitch factors—whether the defense will 

unfairly surprise plaintiff, the party who controls the relevant 

information, the statutory scheme, and “policy and fairness 

considerations”—collectively confirm that the employer bears

the burden of proof. 793 F.3d at 361. Here, until the defense is 

raised, plaintiffs would not anticipate the relevance of administrative efficiency in recordkeeping, which is a factor bearing 

on whether unpaid time is de minimis. See De Asencio v. Tyson 

Foods, Inc., 500 F.3d 361, 374 (3d Cir. 2007). Plaintiffs would 

likely seek “different discovery” or alter “trial strategy [if] the 

defendant affirmatively pleaded the defense.” Evankavitch, 

793 F.3d at 365. After all, employers control the information 

needed to prove the defense. And that assumption is embedded 

in the statutory scheme. The Act pushes the responsibility to 

gather information about wages and hours onto the employer. 

29 U.S.C §211(c). These are just the kinds of “other policy or 

fairness considerations” that Evankavitch instructs us to consider. 793 F.3d at 361.

So we join the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits in placing the burden of proof on the employer. Kellar v. Summit 

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Seating Inc., 664 F.3d 169, 176 (7th Cir. 2011); Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC, 107 F.4th 902, 911, 915 (9th Cir. 2024)

(relying on Rutti v. Lojack Corp., Inc., 596 F.3d 1046, 1057 

n.10 (9th Cir. 2010)); Peterson v. Nelnet Diversified Sols., 

LLC, 15 F.4th 1033, 1042–43 (10th Cir. 2021).

Because the de minimis doctrine is an affirmative defense, 

employers must plead it in the answer. Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c)(1). 

Yet “[o]ften[,] 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.” Corbin v. Time Warner 

Ent.-Advance/Newhouse P’ship, 821 F.3d 1069, 1080 (9th Cir. 

2016) (not treating the de minimis doctrine as an affirmative 

defense, in tension with statements in Cadena and Rutti that 

the employer bears the burden of proving time de minimis). So 

district courts “should freely give leave [to amend and add this 

defense] when justice so requires.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2).

III. EMPLOYERS MUST PAY FOR ACTUAL,

NOT REASONABLE, TIME SPENT

At summary judgment, the District Court held that East 

Penn had to pay workers for the time they actually spent on 

changing and showering, not just the time reasonably needed 

to do so. And it instructed the jury that East Penn had “to pay 

each of its employees for the time spent.” App. 425.

On appeal, East Penn says it did enough by paying them for 

the two grace periods, the time it believes was reasonable. 

Focusing on actual time, it worries, would reward employees 

for dragging their feet or tending to personal matters. But under 

the Act, the correct measure is actual time.

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East Penn argues that the Supreme Court has already resolved 

this issue, but it has not. True, as East Penn notes, Anderson v. 

Mt. Clemens Pottery held that “under the conditions prevalent 

in [the] plant, compensable working time was limited to the 

minimum time necessarily spent in walking at an ordinary rate 

along the most direct route.” 328 U.S. at 692. The Court explained

that “[m]any employees took roundabout journeys and stopped 

off en route for purely personal reasons.” Id. So it limited the 

payment to time that benefited the employer: time spent working within the overall walking time. 

But Anderson’s reach is limited because it addressed activity that was not clearly work. Realizing the “immense” liabilities that could arise from Anderson, the next year Congress 

amended the statute to provide that preliminary walking activities are not work. Steiner, 350 U.S. at 253; 29 U.S.C. 

§§251(a), 254(a). Anderson reached its reasonable-time holding in the context of “the conditions prevalent in [the]respondent’s plant” and the employees’ activities. 328 U.S. at 692 (emphasis added). It recognized that “walking to work on the employer’s premises” leaves a lot of room for loafing, so employers needed a reasonable limitation on compensation. Id. at 691. 

Congress later eliminated payment for that walking time. 

29 U.S.C. §254(a). Anderson required reasonable time instead 

of actual time when tracking an activity that no longer counts 

as work. That carve-out does not apply here, where East Penn 

concedes that the changing and showering activities are work. 

Plus, the Supreme Court has distinguished the walking activities in Anderson from walking time incident to changing and 

showering. IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21, 35 (2005). So we 

look to the text of the statute as our guide.

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The Act’s text focuses on actual time. “Among the bedrock 

principles of the [Act] is the requirement that employers pay 

employees for all hours worked.” Smiley v. E.I. Dupont De 

Nemours & Co., 839 F.3d 325, 330 (3d Cir. 2016) (emphasis 

added). The wage-and-hour provisions track the hours that 

employees work; they say nothing about a reasonableness 

limit. 29 U.S.C. §§206(a)(1), 207(a)(1). Plus, the Act orders 

employers to track actual hours and keep records of them. Id.

§211(c). That requirement “ensure[s] that all workers are paid 

the minimum wage for every hour worked.” Williams v. TriCnty. Growers, Inc., 747 F.2d 121, 128 (3d Cir. 1984). If reasonable time sufficed, employers could instead estimate hours,

but estimating violates the recordkeeping requirement. Id. If a 

worker lollygags, “the employer’s recourse is to discipline or 

terminate the employee—not to withhold compensation.” 

Sec’y U.S. Dep’t of Lab. v. Am. Future Sys., Inc., 873 F.3d 420, 

432 (3d Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).

We thus join the Sixth Circuit in basing liability on the actual 

time that workers spend. Brock v. City of Cincinnati, 236 F.3d 

793, 802–03 (6th Cir. 2001); see also Holzapfel v. Town of 

Newburgh, N.Y., 145 F.3d 516, 526–28 (2d Cir. 1998) (using 

actual time instead of reasonable time at least in the context of 

K-9 officers); Alvarez v. IBP, Inc., 339 F.3d 894, 914 (9th Cir. 

2003) (not “disagree[ing]” that the Act focuses on work actually performed, but applying a reasonable time standard to calculate class-wide damages), aff’d on other grounds, 546 U.S. 

21 (2005). By contrast, the Tenth Circuit has used reasonable 

time, but only as part of a retroactive damages calculation. 

Reich v. IBP, Inc., 38 F.3d 1123, 1127 (10th Cir. 1994) (using 

reasonable time when there were no records of actual time and

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explaining that there were “differences in personal routines”); 

cf. Lopez v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 690 F.3d 869, 878 (8th Cir. 

2012) (holding only that, on plain-error review, “the district 

court’s ‘reasonable time’ instructions, if error, were not clear 

error” given the unclear case law on the issue).

IV. EAST PENN’S OTHER CLAIMS ALSO FAIL

East Penn raises a slew of other claims. None is persuasive. 

A. Any error on the recordkeeping issue was harmless

Employers must keep records of their hourly employees’ 

“[h]ours worked each workday and total hours worked each 

workweek.” 29 C.F.R. § 516.2(a)(7). At summary judgment, 

the District Court held East Penn liable for not keeping required

records of how long workers spent changing and showering. It 

also rejected East Penn’s de minimis defense to that recordkeeping violation. 

East Penn says the courtshould have first let the jury decide 

whether the time spent was de minimis. 29 C.F.R. §785.47 

(providing that, in keeping records, employers may disregard 

“insubstantial or insignificant periods of time beyond the 

scheduled working hours”). But if there was error, it was harmless. The jury was instructed properly and found that the time 

spent was not de minimis. The jury found East Penn liable for 

$22.5 million of unpaid wages. Properly viewed in the aggregate, this sum is indeed not de minimis. See De Asencio, 500 

F.3d at 375 (directing the District Court to consider unpaid 

time in the aggregate); Cadena, 107 F.4th at 911 (“[C]ourts 

have awarded relief for claims that, when aggregated, 

amounted to a substantial claim, even if the amounts might be 

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minimal on a daily basis.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

Because the time in question was not de minimis, East Penn 

had to keep records of that time. So any de minimis defense to 

recordkeeping would not apply.

B. There was enough representative evidence

Plaintiffs may prove claims under the Act by using representative evidence of some employees’ experiences to show 

how employees in general were treated. Reich v. Gateway 

Press, Inc., 13 F.3d 685, 701–02 (3d Cir. 1994). After trial, the 

District Court denied East Penn’s motion for judgment as a 

matter of law, holding that the government had put on sufficient representative evidence. That ruling was proper too.

On appeal from the jury verdict, we “view[] the evidence 

in the light most favorable to the nonmovant” (here, the government) and must affirm if there is enough evidence “from 

which a jury reasonably could find liability.” Lightning Lube, 

Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F.3d 1153, 1166 (3d Cir. 1993). This case 

clears that low bar. Though only a small number of employees

testified, East Penn correctly concedes that “there is no brightline test establishing the percentage of employees necessary to 

achieve a representative sample.” Appellant’s Br. 38. And 

though the employees were spread across twenty-four plants, 

they “were all subject to the same pay and uniform policies that 

provided insufficient time to complete clothes-changing and 

showering activities on East Penn’s campus.” App. 77–78. 

Plus, Dr. Radwin’s expert time study gave the jury additional 

representative evidence. A reasonable jury could have seen all 

this as representative enough to support liability.

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C. The District Court properly admitted the government expert’s testimony

East Penn raises one final challenge: The District Court 

should not have admitted the testimony of the government’s 

expert, Dr. Robert Radwin. He hired six research assistants to

observe eight (out of twenty-four) plants: three large, three medium, and two small. They measured the time that 370 workers 

spent putting on clothing and 131 workers spent taking it off 

and showering. Dr. Radwin then prepared a report and testified about his findings.

East Penn argues that the District Court abused its discretion because Dr. Radwin’s testimony was unreliable. It objects 

that, by averaging data across eight plants, he obscured differences among them. And it contends that he could not validly 

extrapolate from eight plants to all twenty-four.

As the District Court explained, despite any methodological flaws, Dr. Radwin’s testimony was admissible. The court 

properly understood the legal standard: whether Dr. Radwin’s 

technique was reliable enough to help the jury reach an accurate result. In re Paoli R.R. Yard PCB Litig., 35 F.3d 717, 744 

(3d Cir. 1994). Although East Penn challenges how he calculated and interpreted the results, such a challenge “ordinarily 

goes to the weight of the evidence, not to its admissibility.” 

Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, LLC, 849 F.3d 61, 83 (3d Cir. 

2017). The District Court did not abuse its discretion by admitting his evidence.

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V. THE DISTRICT COURT PROPERLY DENIED

LIQUIDATED DAMAGES

The Secretary cross-appeals the District Court’s refusal to 

award liquidated damages. Employers who violate the Act are 

liable for back pay plus “an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.” 29 U.S.C. §216(b). But courts have discretion 

not to award liquidated damages if the employer shows that its 

violation “was in good faith” and that it “had reasonable 

grounds for believing that [its] act or omission was not a violation” of the Act. Id. § 260. To qualify, the “employer must 

show that [it] took affirmative steps to ascertain the Act’s requirements, but nonetheless, violated its provisions.” Martin v. 

Cooper Elec. Supply Co., 940 F.2d 896, 908 (3d Cir. 1991).

We review the District Court’s legal conclusion that East Penn 

had reasonable grounds de novo, its underlying findings of historical fact for clear error, and its ultimate denial of liquidated 

damages for abuse of discretion. Id. 

In finding the facts, the District Court did not clearly err. 

After trial, it held an evidentiary hearing, reviewed the documentary evidence, and weighed the witnesses’ credibility. It 

found that East Penn had “relied in good faith on the advice of 

a properly experienced labor and employment attorney” and 

“tailored its policies in response to, and consistent with, the 

information and guidance it received from its attorney.” App. 

229–30 (footnotes omitted). Those findings were proper.

Based on those facts, the District Court correctly concluded 

that East Penn had reasonable legal grounds to think that its 

employment practices were lawful. Before this opinion, the 

Third Circuit had no controlling precedent on whether 

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employers had to pay for actual or reasonable time. East Penn 

asked legal counsel how to follow the law, and counsel advised

East Penn that it might be able to disregard pre-shift work as 

de minimis. Even though that advice turned out to be mistaken, 

following it was reasonable. So the District Court properly exercised its discretion not to award liquidated damages.

* * * * *

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay 

hourly employees for the time that they actually work, not just 

a reasonable amount of time. If employers claim that time was 

trivial, they bear the burden of proving that de minimis defense. 

Because the District Court correctly held East Penn to those 

requirements, we will affirm.

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