Opinion ID: 697027
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the portal to portal act exceptions

Text: 11 The Union and employees also argue that the employees are entitled to overtime pay by virtue of the exceptions to the Portal to Portal Act provided in Sec. 254(b). That section requires employers to include time spent on activities otherwise exempted by Sec. 254(a) for purposes of calculating overtime where such activities are compensable by either custom or practice or by contract. The employees claim that the disputed travel time was compensable by both custom or practice and contract. 12 The Portal to Portal Act provides no definition of the terms custom or practice. The applicable administrative regulations, however, indicate that the travel time in this case was not compensable by custom or practice within the meaning of the Portal to Portal Act. 29 C.F.R. Sec. 790.10 (c) (1991) describes the phrase custom or practice as every normal situation under which an employee works [f]or an employer for compensation, and where an employer, without being compelled to do so by an express provision of a contract, has paid employees for certain activities performed. Riding to and from the job site in optional company transportation, however, cannot qualify as either working for or performing certain activities for compensation. As previously noted, travel to and from the Crestmore site was not an indispensable part of the principle activity for which the employees were hired. Furthermore, the policy of compensating employees for travel time between the Oro Grande and Crestmore facilities cannot be accurately characterized as a normal situation. The record clearly indicates that Riverside initiated a temporary nine-month program in response to a short-term economic downturn. Because Riverside constantly rotated the employees assigned to the Crestmore facility, none of them worked at Crestmore on a regular basis. We decline to label such stop-gap measures as a custom or practice. 13 The employees' argument is similarly unsupported by the common usages of the terms custom and practice. Because [c]ongressional reference to contract, custom, or practice was a deliberate use of non-technical words which are commonly understood ..., 29 C.F.R. Sec. 790.10 (c) (1991), the common meaning of these terms as defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary, (3d. unabridged ed. 1971), is instructive. Webster's defines custom as long-established, continued, peaceable, reasonable, certain, and constant practice considered as unwritten law and resting for authority on long consent: a usage that has by long continuance acquired a legally binding force. Id. at 559. Webster's defines practice as repeated or customary action. Id. at 1780. Due to the previously-noted transitory nature of Riverside's transportation policy, we conclude that the district court properly determined that travel time to and from the Crestmore facility was not compensable by custom or practice within the meaning of Sec. 254(a) of the Portal to Portal Act. 14 We also find no evidence that the travel time was compensable by contract. Although California law recognizes both express and implied contracts, Cal Civ. Code Secs. 1620, 1621 (Deering 1994), both types of contracts require a meeting of the minds or agreement. Mulder v. Mendo Wood Products, Inc., 225 Cal. App. 2d 619, 632, 37 Cal. Rptr. 479, 487-88, cert. denied, 379 U.S. 844 (1964). As the district court noted, neither is present in this case. From the outset, Riverside operated under the impression that it was providing a gratuitous allowance for otherwise noncompensable travel time, while some of the employees apparently believed that they were being compensated at the hourly rate for hours worked. Such a misunderstanding, though understandable in light of Riverside's decision to compensate the travel time at the employees' normal hourly rate, necessarily precludes the possibility that the employees' travel time was compensable by either an express or implied contract.