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Page Number: 1.0

(Slip Opinion) 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2013 

1 

Syllabus 

NOTE:  Where  it  is  feasible,  a  syllabus  (headnote)  will  be  released,  as  is
being  done  in  connection  with  this  case,  at  the  time  the  opinion  is  issued.
The  syllabus  constitutes  no  part  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court  but  has  been
prepared  by  the  Reporter  of  Decisions  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

SANDIFER ET AL. v. UNITED STATES STEEL CORP. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 
THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 12–417.  Argued November 4, 2013—Decided January 27, 2014 

Petitioner  Sandifer  and  others  filed  a  putative  collective  action  under 
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, seeking backpay for time spent
donning  and  doffing  pieces  of  protective  gear  that  they  assert  re-
spondent  United States  Steel  Corporation  requires  workers  to  wear 
because of hazards at its steel plants.  U. S. Steel contends that this 
donning-and-doffing  time,  which  would  otherwise  be  compensable
under the Act, is noncompensable under a provision of its collective-
bargaining agreement with petitioners’ union.  That provision’s valid-
ity depends on 29 U. S. C. §203(o), which allows parties to collectively 
bargain  over  whether  “time  spent  in  changing  clothes . . . at  the  be-
ginning or end of each workday” must be compensated.  The District 
Court granted U. S. Steel summary judgment in pertinent part, hold-
ing  that  petitioners’  donning  and  doffing  constituted  “changing 
clothes” under §203(o).  It also assumed that any time spent donning 
and doffing items that were not “clothes” was “de minimis” and hence 
noncompensable.  The Seventh Circuit affirmed. 

Held: The  time  petitioners  spend  donning  and  doffing  their  protective 

gear is not compensable by operation of §203(o).  Pp. 3–15.

(a) This  Court  initially  construed  compensability  under  the  Fair 
Labor Standards Act expansively.  See, e.g., Anderson v. Mt. Clemens 
Pottery Co., 328 U. S. 680.  The Act was amended in 1949, however, 
to provide that the compensability of time spent “changing clothes or
washing at the beginning or end of each workday” is a subject appro-
priately  committed  to  collective  bargaining,  §203(o).  Whether  peti-
tioners’  donning  and  doffing  qualifies  as  “changing  clothes”  depends 
on the meaning of that statutory phrase.  Pp. 3–6.

(b) The term “clothes,” which is otherwise undefined, is “interpret-
ed as taking [its] ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.”  Perrin