Opinion ID: 2959795
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Donning and Doffing of Protective Gear

Text: Similarly, a helmet, safety glasses, and steel-toed boots may be indispensable to plaintiffs’ principal activities without being integral.6 The donning and doffing of such generic protective gear is not different in kind from “changing clothes and showering under normal conditions,” which, under Steiner, are not covered by the FLSA. 350 U.S. at 249. Among the activities classified in the regulations as preliminary and postliminary are “checking in and out and waiting in line to do so, changing clothes, washing up or showering, and waiting in line to receive pay checks.” 29 C.F.R. § 790.7(g) (emphasis added). The donning and doffing of generic protective gear is not rendered integral by being required by the employer or by government regulation. See Reich v. IBP, Inc., 38 F.3d 1123, 1126 (10th Cir. 1994) (holding that donning and doffing safety glasses, a pair of earplugs, a hard hat and safety shoes, “although essential to the job, and required by the employer,” are pre- and postliminary activities) ; 6 At argument, plaintiffs’ counsel conceded that the protective gear listed in the complaint (helmets, safety glasses, and steel-toed shoes) were the only protective gear that plaintiffs were required to wear; if given the opportunity to re-plead, counsel would not supplement. 18 Anderson v. Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., 147 F. Supp. 2d 556, 563 (E.D. Tex. 2001) (same), aff'd, 44 Fed. Appx. 652 (5th Cir. 2002) (not precedential). But see Alvarez v. IBP, Inc., 339 F.3d 894, 903 (9th Cir. 2003) (observing that the “donning, doffing, and cleaning of non-unique gear (e.g., hardhats) [is] ‘integral and indispensable’ as that term is defined in Steiner”), aff’d on other grounds, IBP, 546 U.S. at 21. The donning and doffing of a helmet, safety glasses and boots are “relatively effortless,” non-compensable, preliminary tasks. N.Y. City Transit Auth., 45 F.3d at 649. And even if the donning and doffing of a helmet, safety glasses and steel-toed boots were “integral and indispensable” to plaintiffs’ principal activities, we would be required to 19 consider whether the time so spent was de minimis.7 See id. 7 As this Court explained in New York City Transit Authority: [T]he de minimis doctrine was first articulated by the Supreme Court in Anderson . . . : “When the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours, such trifles may be disregarded. . . . 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.” 45 F.3d at 652 (quoting Anderson, 32 U.S. at 692). Three factors bear upon the determination of whether the time spent in a particular activity is de minimis: (1) the administrative difficulty of recording the time; (2) the size of the claim in the aggregate; and (3) whether the tasks occur regularly. Id. (citing Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057, 1062-63 (9th Cir. 1984)). The tasks here are repeated daily and there would be little administrative difficulty in recording them. As to the size of the potential claim, plaintiffs’ counsel was asked at argument: “Is there anything special about these shoes or glasses, or safety caps that takes longer than what we could, in or own experience, know about putting [them] on?” Counsel responded: “Not to my knowledge.” And counsel acknowledged that these shoes are not somehow more complicated than an ordinary shoe. The pleadings would not contradict a conclusion that the time so spent would be de minimis; but we decide this case on the ground that the activities at issue are preliminary and postliminary because that conclusion is more easily arrived at on the pleadings. Moreover, it is perhaps unclear (after IBP’s continuous workday rule) whether the de minimis test measures only the first integral and indispensable activity of the day, or includes as well all intervening steps that precede the next principal activity of the continuous workday. 20 at 652-53.