Opinion ID: 2853488
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: activities which are preliminary to or

Text: 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.2 No one would expect to pay an office worker for the time it takes to shave and put on a suit and tie. Everyone expects to pay an electrical worker for the time it takes to carry conduit from the pile of construction materials at the site to the location on the site where the conduit is to be installed. The issue in this case is whether, in the disputed circumstances, a firefighter’s activities of collecting and loading into his car his turnout gear, and driving it to a station other than his home station, are “preliminary” or “postliminary” to the “principal activities” for which firefighters are employed. The district court held that as a matter of law they are and thus uncompensable under the Act. We agree. After the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the Supreme Court held in Tennessee Coal, Iron & 2 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). 10 BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. Railroad Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123 that the time miners spent on their difficult and dangerous trip, largely underground, after checking in for work, on their way to the working face, was compensable work under the Act.3 Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. held that the minimum necessary time spent walking from the time clock to the pottery workers’ benches “along clean, painted floors of the brightly illuminated and well ventilated building” where they were free to take whatever route they wished and make personal visits along the way, counted as compensable work for overtime purposes, just as much as the dangerous and difficult miners’ underground movement.4 Congress responded to these and lower court decisions with the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, finding that the Fair Labor Standards Act had been “interpreted judicially in disregard of long-established customs,” creating “wholly unexpected liabilities, immense in amount and retroactive in operation,” that would “bring about financial ruin” or “seriously impair the capital resources of many [employers].”5 The Portal-to-Portal Act narrowed the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act.6 It added the “preliminary” and “postliminary” language that is the focus of many cases since, including this one. 3 321 U.S. 590, 598 (1944). 4 328 U.S. 680, 683, 691 (1946). 5 29 U.S.C. § 251(a). 6 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. 11 Much of the case law since the Portal-to-Portal Act has addressed “donning and doffing.” Steiner v. Mitchell held that the time spent changing clothes at the beginning and showering and changing at the end of the workday, for protection from the dangerously caustic and toxic materials they worked with, was not “preliminary” or “postliminary.”7 The explanation was that this donning and doffing, required by law and for worker safety, was “an integral and indispensable part of the [workers’] principal activities.”8 In Alvarez v. IBP, Inc., we had held that donning and doffing required protective clothes and gear before cutting meat was integral and indispensable to the activity of cutting meat.9 On review, our decision was affirmed, though the issue before the Court was not the donning and doffing, but rather the walking between the locker room and the meat cutting station.10 In its consolidated opinion, the Court affirmed in part and reversed in part a First Circuit decision, and held that time spent waiting to don and doff at a poultry processing plant was not compensable for overtime purposes.11 The Court compared this sometimes necessary waiting time to the necessary time spent walking from the time clock to the work station in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., and since it was “indisputable” that the walking time was excluded under the Portal-to-Portal Act, even though it was necessary, the 7 350 U.S. 247, 250–51 (1956). 8 Id. at 256. 9 339 F.3d 894, 903 (9th Cir. 2003), aff’d on other grounds, 546 U.S. 21 (2005). 10 IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21, 32 (2005). 11 Id. at 42. 12 BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. waiting time to don and doff was excluded.12 The reason was that the waiting time was “two steps removed from the productive activity,” too far removed to be “integral” to slaughtering chickens.13 We held in Ballaris v. Wacker Siltronic Corp. that donning and doffing special gowns, for the employer’s benefit, to work in clean rooms of a chip manufacturer (where a tiny speck of dust ruins what may be an expensive computer chip), was compensable.14 Our decision rested on two factors, that the donning and doffing was for the benefit of the employer, and that the employer required it. But in Bamonte v. City of Mesa, we held the other way, limiting Ballaris.15 Bamonte holds that the time police officers spent donning and doffing their uniforms at the station was not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act.16 We distinguished Ballaris on the ground that the police officers could don and doff at home if they wished, so donning and doffing at the police station was not required or for the employer’s benefit.17 As in the case before us now, the police officers had reasons for not performing the activity at home, such as risk of access by family members to 12 Id. at 41. 13 Id. at 42. 14 370 F.3d 901, 912 (9th Cir. 2004). 15 598 F.3d 1217 (9th Cir. 2010). 16 Id. at 1225. 17 Id. at 1225–26. BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. 13 firearms and exposure of family members to contaminants and bodily fluids.18 But these reasons, for the benefit of the employees and not the employers, were not enough to make changing at the police station compensable work.19 The case before us, unlike those above, is not a donning and doffing case. We addressed issues other than donning and doffing in Busk v. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc.20 Warehouse workers at Amazon had to go through a security check on their way out of the building, to protect the company from theft. We held that “preliminary” and “postliminary” activities remain compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act if “integral and indispensable” to the “employees’ principal activities,” a requirement met if they were “necessary to the principal work performed” and “done for the benefit of the employer.”21 We held that this test was satisfied because the security check had to be done at the premises, it was for the benefit of the employer (preventing employee theft), and the employer required it.22 But we were reversed. In Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, the Supreme Court held unanimously that the time waiting to clear security on the way out was not compensable 18 Id. at 1220. 19 Id. at 1225–26. 20 713 F.3d 525 (9th Cir. 2013), rev’d, 574 U.S. ____, 135 S. Ct. 513 (2014). 21 Id. at 530 (internal quotation marks omitted). 22 Id. at 531. 14 BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. under the Fair Labor Standards Act.23 Even though the employer required the security check before the employee could leave the building and go home, the Court held that it was “postliminary.”24 The Court held that “[t]he security screenings . . . were not ‘integral and indispensable’ to the employees’ duties as warehouse workers.”25 The Court notes that the employer “could have eliminated the screenings altogether without impairing the employees’ ability to complete their work,” which was getting products off the shelves and packaging them for shipment.26 They were hired to do that, not to go through security screenings. The Court said that we “erred by focusing on whether an employer required a particular activity” because “[t]he integral and indispensable test is tied to the productive work that the employee is employed to perform.”27 “If the test could be satisfied merely by the fact that an employer required an activity, it would sweep into ‘principal activities’ the very activities that the Portal-to-Portal Act was designed to address.”28 The Court held that our “for the benefit of the employer” test was “similarly overbroad.”29 23 574 U.S. ____, 135 S. Ct. 513, 518 (2014). 24 Integrity Staffing, 135 S. Ct. at 518. 25 Id. 26 Id. 27 Id. at 519. 28 Id. 29 Id. BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. 15 Under Integrity Staffing, it is not enough to make activity compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act that the employer requires it and it is done for the benefit of the employer. Even activities required by the employer and for the employer’s benefit are “preliminary” or “postliminary” if not integral and indispensable to “the productive work that the employee is employed to perform.”30 “[A]n activity is integral and indispensable to the principal activities that an employee is employed to perform—and thus compensable under the FLSA—if it is an intrinsic element of those activities and one with which the employee cannot dispense if he is to perform his principal activities.”31 Applying Integrity Staffing to the present case, the correctness of the district court’s decision is plain. When the firefighter has put his name on the list for overtime calls, he is free to take his gear home, and if he gets a call, he can go to the visiting station for the assigned shift without even stopping by his home station.32 Thus, driving to the home station first is not “indispensable” to the firefighters’ principal activities.33 If the firefighter has come to work early, as plaintiffs’ evidence suggests they sometimes do, and then must spend what was expected to be leisure time before the shift, gathering and transporting turnout gear to a visiting 30 Id. 31 Id. 32 Cf. Bamonte, 598 F.3d at 1225–26 (rejecting the argument that donning and doffing protective gear is integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal activities when the employee chooses to keep the protective gear at work but is not required to do so). 33 Integrity Staffing, 135 S. Ct. at 518. 16 BALESTRIERI V. MENLO PARK FIRE PROT. DIST. station, that activity is “preliminary” because it is not “intrinsic” to the firefighting activity that he is employed to perform. The Fair Labor Standards Act says expressly what firefighters are employed to do: they are “employed by a fire department of a municipality,” have “the legal authority and responsibility to engage in fire suppression” and are “engaged in the prevention, control, and extinguishment of fires or response to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk.”34 Loading up turnout gear to report to a shift at a visiting station is “two steps removed” from that activity, not “integral and indispensable” to it.35