Opinion ID: 218262
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mid-Shift Donning and Doffing

Text: We next address the issue whether the employees' acts of donning and doffing at their meal break are compensable as work under the FLSA. As an initial matter, we disagree with Mountaire's argument that our holding in Roy v. County of Lexington, 141 F.3d 533 (4th Cir.1998), requires us to focus our analysis on the unpaid meal break as a whole, rather than on the time the employees spend donning and doffing their protective gear. Our decision in Roy does not counsel such a result. In Roy, certain emergency medical service personnel requested compensation for their entire meal break, because they were required to be on call to respond to emergencies during the entire break. 141 F.3d at 544. In conducting an analysis of the entire meal break, this Court denied the claim for compensation, concluding that the meal period, as a whole, predominately benefitted the employees. Id. at 545. In the present case, however, the employees do not seek compensation for their entire meal break. Rather, the employees seek compensation only for the time periods in which the acts of donning and doffing occur, activities that they allege occur before and after their bona fide meal period. Therefore, we are not confronted here with an issue whether the entire meal period predominately benefits the employer, but instead decide whether the time periods during which these activities occur, and for which compensation is sought, predominately benefit the employer. See id. The district court found that the employees' acts of donning and doffing at the meal break benefit Mountaire by helping to limit [Mountaire's] products' exposure to bacteria and ensure that products are uncontaminated and clean. Perez, 610 F.Supp.2d at 521. Although the district court acknowledged that the employees also benefit from being able to eat without blood and other chicken products on their persons, the district court found that the benefit to Mountaire outweighs the benefit to the employees. Id. These factual findings are well-supported by the present record and, therefore, should be applied in the resolution of this appeal. See Universal Furniture, 618 F.3d at 427. If we were writing on a clean slate, we would hold that based on the district court's factual findings, these activities are not part of the bona fide meal period but are compensable as work under the continuous workday rule. [7] See Alvarez, 546 U.S. at 29, 126 S.Ct. 514; Roy, 141 F.3d at 545. We are bound, however, by circuit precedent. In Sepulveda, this Court held, as a matter of law, that acts of donning and doffing occurring before and after employees eat their meals are non-compensable because these acts are part of the bona fide meal period. 591 F.3d at 216. Alternatively, this Court concluded that the time spent by employees conducting such activities was non-compensable on the ground that the time was de minimis. [8] Id. The full text of the Court's discussion of this issue in Sepulveda was as follows: Lastly, the employees seek compensation for the time they spend during their lunch breaks donning and doffing a few items, washing, and walking to and from the cafeteria. This time is noncompensable, however, because it is part of a bona fide meal period, see 29 C.F.R. § 785.19 (Bona fide meal periods are not worktime.), and, in the alternative, de minimis. See Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 692, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946) (When the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours, such trifles may be disregarded.). Id. In resolving this issue as a matter of law, the Court in Sepulveda appears to have departed from our holding in Roy, which instructs that the issue whether employees are entitled to receive compensation as a result of particular activities performed incident to a meal break presents a question of fact to be resolved by appropriate findings of the trial court. Roy, 141 F.3d at 545 (quoting Skidmore v. Swift, 323 U.S. 134, 136-37, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944)). In Skidmore, the Supreme Court specifically advised against lay[ing] down a legal formula to resolve [FLSA] cases so varied in their facts. [9] 323 U.S. at 136, 65 S.Ct. 161. Thus, we conclude that the decision in Roy requires the predominant benefit factual analysis that the district court conducted in the present case. [10] Nevertheless, because the activities in Sepulveda involved meal break donning and doffing at a poultry processing plant, and the character of those activities cannot be distinguished substantively from the activities at issue here, we are required to follow this Court's holding resolving that issue. See United States v. Prince-Oyibo, 320 F.3d 494, 501 (4th Cir.2003). Accordingly, we conclude that the employees are not entitled to compensation for the time spent donning and doffing protective gear incident to the meal period. [11] Sepulveda, 591 F.3d at 216.