Opinion ID: 1456517
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying the applicable law to Rutti's off-the-clock activities

Text: Rutti's off-the-clock activities may be divided between those that take place before he leaves home, i.e. his preliminary activities, and those that take place after he returns home, i.e. his postliminary activities.
Rutti's morning activities do not appear to be integral to his principal activities. Most of his activitiesreceiving, mapping, and prioritizing jobs and routes for assignmentare related to his commute. Under the FLSA, commuting is presumptively noncompensable, and is clearly distinct from Rutti's principal activities for Lojack. Although there are some indications that Rutti also filled out some forms for his jobs at home, it is not clear that the paperwork could not be performed after Rutti reached the job site, or that Lojack required the forms to be filled out before Rutti reached the job site. In any event, these preliminary activities, to the extent that they are both distinct from his commute (which is not compensable) and related to his principal activities, appear to be de minimis, and thus, not compensable. Even though Rutti allegedly filled out certain forms every morning, there is nothing to suggest that this took more than a minute or so. Thus, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Rutti, he has not offered any evidence of preliminary activities that are both integral to his principal activities for Lojack and take more than a de minimis amount of time. Accordingly, the district court properly granted Lojack summary judgment on Rutti's claim for compensation for preliminary activities.
Lojack requires that Rutti, after he completes his last job for the day and goes off-the-clock, return home and send a PDT transmission to Lojack using a modem provided by Lojack. The transmissions have to be made every day as they provide Lojack with information concerning all the jobs its technicians perform during the day. The transmissions appear to be part of the regular work of the employees in the ordinary course of business, and are necessary to the business and [are] performed by the employees, primarily for the benefit of the employer, in the ordinary course of that business. Dunlop, 527 F.2d at 401. Accordingly, at least on summary judgment, the district court could not determine that this activity was not integral to the Rutti's principal activities. Lojack might still be entitled to summary judgment, if it could be determined that this postliminary activity was clearly de minimis. The evidence before the district court, however, does not compel such a conclusion. The fact that several technicians testified that they spent no more than five to ten minutes a night on PDT transmissions might appear to give rise to a presumption that an activity is de minimis, see Lindow, 738 F.2d at 1062, but such a conclusion is neither factually nor legally compelling. It is not factually compelling because, although it may take only five to ten minutes to initiate and send the PDT transmission, the record shows that the employee is required to come back and check to see that the transmission was successful, and if not, send it again. There is also evidence in the record that there are frequent transmission failures. Accordingly, the record does not compel a finding that the daily transmission of the record of the day's jobs takes less than ten minutes. Furthermore, we have not adopted a ten or fifteen minute de minimis rule. Although we noted in Lindow, that most courts have found daily periods of approximately 10 minutes de minimis even though otherwise compensable, we went on to hold that [t]here is no precise amount of time that may be denied compensation as de minimis  and that [n]o rigid rule can be applied with mathematical certainty. 738 F.2d at 1062. The panel went on to set forth a three-prong standard, which would have been unnecessary if the panel had intended to adopt a ten or fifteen minute rule. [12] The application of this three-prong test to the facts in this case do not compel a conclusion that the PDT transmissions are de minimis. The first prong, the practical administrative difficulty of recording the additional time, id. at 1063, is closely balanced in this case. Certainly, it is difficult to determine exactly how much time each technician spends daily on the PDT transmissions. It is also not clear what activities should be covered. Is the time when the technician comes back to check to see if the transmission was successful included? When a technician is waiting until ten minutes after the hour, is he engaged to wait or waiting to be engaged? See Owens, 971 F.2d at 350. Although it may be difficult to determine the actual time a technician takes to complete the PDT transmissions, it may be possible to reasonably determine or estimate the average time. For example, there is evidence in the record that Lojack had agreed to pay one technician an extra 15 minutes a day to cover the time spent on PDT transmissions. In sum, the inherent difficulty of recording the actual time spent on a particular PDT transmission does not necessarily bar a determination that the PDT transmissions are not de minimis. See Reich v. Monfort, Inc., 144 F.3d 1329, 1334 (10th Cir.1998) (holding that the time it took meat packers to don and shed their employer-mandated clothing was not de minimis even though the practical difficulty of supervising and recording the additional time weighs in favor of finding it noncompensable). The other two prongs, the aggregate amount of compensable time, and the regularity of the additional work, Lindow, 738 F.2d at 1063, favor Rutti. Rutti asserts that the transmissions take about 15 minutes a day. This is over an hour a week. For many employees, this is a significant amount of time and money. Also, the transmissions must be made at the end of every work day, and appear to be a requirement of a technician's employment. This suggests that the transmission are performed as part of the regular work of the employees in the ordinary course of business, Dunlop, 527 F.2d at 401, and accordingly, unless the amount of time approaches what the Supreme Court termed split-second absurdities, the technician should be compensated. See Anderson, 328 U.S. at 692, 66 S.Ct. 1187. Our review of the record suggests that the PDT transmissions are an integral part of Rutti's principal activities and that there are material issues of fact as to whether the PDT transmissions are de minimis. Accordingly, the grant of summary judgment in favor of Lojack on Rutti's claim for the transmissions must be vacated. See Balint v. Carson City, Nev., 180 F.3d 1047, 1054 (9th Cir.1999) (holding that in reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we do not weigh the evidence or determine the truth of the matter, but only determines whether there is a genuine issue for trial). This does not mean that on remand, Lojack may not be able to make a persuasive factual showing for summary judgment under the standard clarified in this opinion. We, however, decline to make such a decision in the first instance.