Opinion ID: 687265
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The FLSA and the Portal-to-Portal Act

Text: 10 The purpose of the FLSA, passed in 1938, was to guarantee[ ] compensation for all work or employment engaged in by employees covered by the Act. Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 602, 64 S.Ct. 698, 705, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944). The Act requires employers to pay overtime for employment in excess of [forty hours] at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which [the employee] is employed. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 207(a)(1). While Congress made clear that employers are required to compensate employees for work or employment, it did not define the contours of the type of work or employment that merited such compensation. 11 The Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the FLSA in 1947, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 251, et seq., represented an attempt by Congress to delineate certain activities which did not constitute work, and therefore did not require compensation. It was passed in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946), which construed the FLSA to require compensation for such activities as walking from the factory gate to the workbench, and changing into work clothes. Id. at 692-93, 66 S.Ct. at 1195. 12 Congress made findings that the [FLSA] has been interpreted judicially in disregard of long-established customs, ... thereby creating wholly unexpected liabilities, immense in amount and retroactive in operation, ... with the result that, if ... claims arising under such interpretations were permitted to stand, (1) the payment of such liabilities would bring about financial ruin of many employers ... [and] (4) employees would receive windfall payments ... of sums for activities performed by them without any expectation of reward beyond that included in their agreed rates of pay.... 29 U.S.C. Sec. 251(a). The Act was intended to relieve employers from liability for preliminaries, most of them relatively effortless, that were thought to fall outside the conventional expectations and customs of compensation. 13 The TA contends that its liability is precluded by each of the two exemptions specified in the Act. See 29 U.S.C. Sec. 254(a)(1) and (2). The Act provides (with certain exceptions) that: 14 no employer shall be subject to any liability ... under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ... on account of the failure of such employer to pay an employee ... (1) ... [for] traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform, and (2) [for] activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity or activities. 15 The TA contends that the principal activity or activities of the handlers are limited to patrolling the trains and related activities during the workday. It therefore contends that the commute, and the activities conducted by the handlers during the commute, are exempted from compensation by both the travel exemption and the preliminary/postliminary exemption, as they occur before and after the performance of the handlers' principal activities. 16 The DOL would define the principal activities of the handlers far more broadly, to include also feeding, caring for, and walking the dogs, maintaining a relationship with them, and transporting them. The DOL maintains that these aspects of the handlers' jobs are an important part of the handlers' duties and are performed on the commute and at home during the hours of absence from patrol duties. The DOL thus contends that the commute does not fall within the Portal-to-Portal exemptions, both because it involves principal activities and because it does not occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which [the handler] commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, [his] principal activity or activities. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 254(a). 17 The authorities offer little guidance as to the meaning of the term principal activity or activities, or how to distinguish non-compensable preliminary/postliminary activities. And the guidance that does exist tends to be circular. The basis offered for making this distinction was first expressed by the Supreme Court in Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247, 76 S.Ct. 330, 100 L.Ed. 267 (1956), where the Court advised that duties should be considered principal activities, rather than non-compensable preliminary or postliminary tasks, if they are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which covered workmen are employed.... Id. at 256, 76 S.Ct. at 335. Applying this standard, the Court found, given the high risks to employee safety resulting from toxicity of the environment in an electric battery plant, that the employees' dressing, undressing, and showering were integral and indispensable to the principal activity of producing batteries and were thus a compensable principal activity, even though changing clothes and showering in ordinary circumstances were conceded by the government to be non-compensable. 18 The Court likewise found in Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U.S. 260, 76 S.Ct. 337, 100 L.Ed. 282 (1956), that, for butchers, knife-sharpening performed before or after the work shift or during the employees' lunch hour was compensable as an integral part of and indispensable to the various butchering activities for which [the employees] were principally employed. Id. at 263, 76 S.Ct. at 339. In Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 750 F.2d 47 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1054, 105 S.Ct. 2116, 85 L.Ed.2d 480 (1985), truck drivers were found to be entitled to compensation for time spent driving company trucks to the garage for repairs prior to departing on the freight haulage route because these activities are so indispensable to appellees' principal activity as to be outside the Portal-to-Portal exemption. Id. at 50-51. 5 19 But in Leone v. Mobil Oil Corp., 523 F.2d 1153 (D.C.Cir.1975), employee representatives were not entitled to compensation for accompanying federal safety inspectors in a workplace inspection where the employer did not select the representative and had no control over the representative's participation, and the inspection benefitted the employee. Id. at 1163. And in Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057 (9th Cir.1984), no compensation was found owing where engineering employees of the Army Engineer Corps arrived at work a few minutes early, sometimes spending a few minutes prior to the workday reviewing logs, exchanging information, and opening gates. The court stressed that the employer had made clear that the employees were not expected to arrive early and that it would be difficult for the employer to maintain records for such brief fragmentary episodes of extra activity. As to much of these claims, the court found that they were excludible from compensation under the de minimis rule. 20 While no clear standards emerge, certain generalizations can be drawn from these authorities. The more the preliminary (or postliminary) activity is undertaken for the employer's benefit, the more indispensable it is to the primary goal of the employee's work, and the less choice the employee has in the matter, the more likely such work will be found to be compensable. Commuting and similar activities are generally not compensable. The ability of the employer to maintain records of such time expended is a factor. And, where the compensable preliminary work is truly minimal, it is the policy of the law to disregard it. It is our conclusion, after considering the available guidance, that both sides' principal arguments fall wide of the mark. 21 We think the TA's reading of principal activity or activities as limited to patrolling the trains, and not including even the time spent in off hours feeding, training, and walking the dogs, is too narrow and would lead to anomalous and unjustifiable results. Feeding, training, and walking are work and are indispensable to the dogs' well-being and to the employer's use of the dogs in its business. If the concept of principal activity were as narrow as the TA argues, then an employer could impose significant, time-consuming duties on the employee to be performed at home, before and after the main body of the workday, as well as during the commute, and be exempted from payment for those duties because they were not sufficiently related to the employee's principal duties performed during the workday. We think that such an interpretation would exaggerate the effect of the Portal-to-Portal exemptions, and would substantially undermine the purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act by creating loopholes capable of significant abuse. 22 The Portal-to-Portal exemptions properly protect employers from responsibility for commuting time and for relatively trivial, non-onerous aspects of preliminary preparation, maintenance and clean up. Congress's undertaking to exempt such conventionally unpaid preliminaries (and postliminaries) from compensation in no way suggests, however, that real work assignments are exempt from compensation, just because they occur outside the confines of the main part of the workday. Furthermore, even if the travel exemption protected the employer from being responsible for compensating travel time, it would not follow that the employer is exempt from payment for actual work required to be done during such travel. We therefore reject the TA's contention that the travel exemption immunizes it from liability for any tasks imposed on handlers to be performed during the commute. See 29 C.F.R. Sec. 785.41 (Any work which an employee is required to perform while traveling must, of course, be counted as hours worked.). We also reject the contention that feeding, walking, training or disciplining, when they occur during the commute, are non-compensable preliminary/postliminary activities. 23 On the other hand, we also find that the DOL's contentions are exaggerated. While we agree with the DOL that walking, feeding, training, grooming and cleaning up are integral and indispensable parts of the handler's principal activities and are compensable as work, the DOL goes much further. Pointing to the fact that the handler may not take the dog on public transportation, and that the obligation to walk or discipline the dog, or to clean up if the dog has become sick, or to communicate with the dog, can arise at any time during the commute, the DOL contends that the entire duration of the commute is compensable work time. 24 This goes too far. If accepted, the argument the DOL uses to justify charging the TA for the entire period of the commute would also justify charging for 24 hours a day. There are obligations that fall on the handlers 24 hours a day, and others that can arise at any time during the day or night. Handlers are required to house the dogs at their homes, to walk them, discipline them, and clean up after them whenever the need may arise, even if it were in the middle of the night, and to maintain a suitable relationship with the dog at all times when they are in the dog's presence. Acceptance of the DOL's arguments would require the conclusion that handlers must be compensated around the clock, waking and sleeping, because certain obligations are always present. 25 To resolve the dispute in this case, it is necessary to return to the basic principle that underlies the FLSA: Employees are entitled to compensation only for work. As the Supreme Court found in Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 64 S.Ct. 698, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944), an activity constitutes work (compensable under the FLSA) if it involves physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business. Id. at 598, 64 S.Ct. at 703. To be sure, on occasions, courts have found that compensable work can occur despite absence of exertion, where, for example, employees have been required to stand by and wait for the employer's benefit. See Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 133, 65 S.Ct. 165, 168, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944); Vega v. Gasper, 36 F.3d 417, 425-27 (5th Cir.1994); Hill v. United States, 751 F.2d 810, 812-13 (6th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 817, 106 S.Ct. 63, 88 L.Ed.2d 51 (1985). Here, however, the activity of commuting involved neither exertion nor loss of time. Although forbidden to use public transportation, the handlers were not required to drive; the only requirement was that the ride be in a private vehicle. And the district court explicitly found that the handlers' commuting time was not substantially increased by their dog-care activities. 839 F.Supp. at 178. 26 We believe that the district court erred when it concluded that the handlers' entire commute should be compensated. The DOL did not demonstrate that the entire commute satisfies the statutory concept of compensable work, as illuminated by the Supreme Court's decisions in Tennessee Coal and Armour. See also 29 C.F.R. Sec. 785.7. While there are occasions where dogs need to be walked or restrained, or the car requires cleaning, during the major part of commuting time no work is required. The handler merely drives with the dog in the back seat. The mere presence of a dog does not make the commute compensable. 27 We therefore conclude that the time spent by handlers driving to and from work with their dogs, except to the extent that actual duties of care, feeding, training, walking or cleaning up occur during such commute, is not compensable work. Such true dog-care work occurring during the commute, however, is not exempted from compensation by the Portal-to-Portal Act.