Opinion ID: 6498779
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Drive Time

Text: No controlling California precedent has answered the certified question of whether Wage Order No. 16 requires compensating workers for time spent driving between the entrance/exit of the employer’s premises and the location where the shift begins/ends. Though the time spent driving between the employee parking lots and the Security Gate blends into the time spent waiting for the exit process, CSI’s control differed between the drive time and the exit process, and Huerta’s theory of liability is also distinct. HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS 15
Huerta argues he should be paid for the “drive time” between the Security Gate and the employee parking lots as “hours worked” under the “control” prong of Wage Order No. 16, as he was required to be on the employer’s premises, could not use the time for his own purposes, and was subject to CSI’s rules on the road. CSI contends that the relevant question is the level of control, not whether workers could use the time for their own purposes, and that enforcing rules on the road does not rise to a compensable level of control. Several of the Frlekin control factors favor Huerta: The drive occurred on CSI’s premises and the rules were enforced through disciplinary measures, including termination, and while the drive itself benefitted both the employee and employer, the rules—including bans on speeding, smoking, drinking, wearing headphones, and other activities—benefitted the employer. California cases concerning off-premises transportation are instructional here. Employers “control” drive time by requiring workers to use employer-provided transportation. Compare Morillion, 995 P.2d at 146–47, with Hernandez, 239 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 856–59 and Overton, 38 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 697–99; see also Frlekin, 457 P.3d at 534 (“[I]n the commute context, an employer’s interest generally is limited to the employee’s timely arrival. . . . [U]nless the employer compels the employee to use a certain kind of transportation or employer-provided transportation, it would be, without more, unreasonable to require the employer to pay for travel time.”). In Morillion, for example, the time spent waiting for and riding on the employer-mandated buses constituted compensable “hours worked” under the relevant wage order because the employer exerted control by “determining when, where, and how [workers] are to travel.” 995 P.2d at 147. 16 HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS The employer in Huerta’s case did not exert a similar time of control: Huerta used his own vehicle, and other workers carpooled with colleagues or took a bus, and the rules he had to follow fundamentally differ from the requirement to ride in an employer’s vehicle. 4 On the other hand, this is not an off-site transportation case: Huerta was required to be on the employer’s premises while he was traveling from the Gate to the parking lot, a fact that weighs in favor of the conclusion that he was under his employer’s control. See Frlekin, 457 P.3d at 531 (indicating that employees were under the employer’s control while awaiting an exit search in part because the employer “confines its employees to the premises as they wait for an undergo an exit search”); cf. Bono Enters., Inc. v. Bradshaw, 38 Cal. Rptr. 2d 549, 553– 54 (Cal. App. 1995), disapproved on other grounds by Tidewater Marine Western, Inc. v. Bradshaw, 927 P.2d 296 (Cal. 1996) (“When an employer directs, commands or restrains an employee from leaving the work place during his or her lunch hour and thus prevents the employee from using the time effectively for his or her own purposes, that employee remains subject to the employer’s control.”). California intermediate courts distinguish Morillion and employer-mandated off-site transportation from employerprovided optional off-site transportation, where employers do not exert sufficient control because workers have choices in their commutes. See Hernandez, 239 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 856– 59; Overton, 38 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 697–99. Huerta argues CSI controlled the drive time between the Security Gate and the employee parking lots because he was on the employer’s 4 Some of the rules impose restrictions similar to ordinary traffic laws, which make the drive resemble non-compensable commute time more than employer-mandated travel. See Frlekin, 457 P.3d at 534 (“Commuting . . . is not generally compensable.”). HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS 17 premises, and therefore could not run errands or pick up his children. See Morillion, 995 P.2d at 146. But this argument is undermined by Hernandez, which determined that employers did not control drive time in optional employerprovided vehicles even when workers were required to carry the employer’s equipment and were not permitted to run errands or make other stops. 239 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 858–59. Indeed, while the Hernandez workers were fully precluded from non-work-related errands on their entire commute, Huerta could have done those things on the rest of his commute aside from the stretch between the Security Gate and the employee parking lots—but Huerta is claiming only that time spent on the stretch between the Gate and the lot qualifies as “hours worked.” In Overton, employees who drove to work were required to park in lots far from the job site, but the time spent on optional shuttles from the parking lot to the job site—time apparently not spent on the employer’s premises—was not compensable, as personally driving to work was voluntary (vanpools and buses were available) and use of the shuttles was not mandatory (they could walk or bike). 38 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 699–701. The facts here distinguishable because the entire travel time occurs on the employer’s premises and Huerta had no option other than to travel on the employer’s premises from the Security Gate to the parking lot of the job site. Even if the arrival to the lot in Overton parallels Huerta’s arrival to the Security Gate as the first entry onto the employer’s premises, in Huerta’s case he had no option other than arriving at the Gate, whereas the Overton employees could arrive directly at their jobsite entrance. See id. at 695. For the same reason, the travel time between the lot and jobsite in Overton is distinguishable from the travel time between the Gate and jobsite here. And the Overton court rejected the suggestion to move the time clock to 18 HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS badge-in at the parking lot as it would result in the employer “paying unnecessary compensation to many of its employees,” including those that walked or biked from the lot to the site. Id. at 701. But even though the travel from the parking lot to the job site was not compensable given that an employee could choose to not make the trip, Overton does not preclude Huerta’s similar drive time claim because he had no choice but to drive from the Gate to his jobsite. Yet the California Supreme Court has not decided the specific issue of whether driving on an employer’s premises, in a personal vehicle, before or after a shift, while subjected to an employer’s rules, is compensable as “hours worked” under the control prong of the wage order, so we are unsure if the time is compensable. Because interpreting the wage hour to favor either party could significantly increase or decrease California employers’ liability for compensating workers when they are on an employer’s premises, we respectfully certify this question for review. 2. “Employer-Mandated Travel” and “First Location” Under Section 5 Wage Order No. 16 Section 5(A) states, “All employermandated travel that occurs after the first location where the employee’s presence is required by the employer shall be compensated at the employee’s regular rate of pay or, if applicable, the premium rate . . . .” The California Supreme Court has never defined “first location” or “employer-mandated travel” in Wage Order No. 16 Section 5and it appears this is the only wage order that includes this travel language. Therefore, we do not know if the Security Gate is the “first location” in this case. The California definition of “compulsory travel time” from Morillion may apply to and define “employer-mandated HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS 19 travel” in Wage Order No. 16, as the legislative history of the wage order cited Morillion. 5 Also, the hearing discussing the passage of the wage order explicitly referenced “protect[ing] worker[s] from being seesawed between job sites . . . where they may be told to report to a particular job site, and then, after performing particular work there, being told to go to a secondary job site, and as a result, not being paid for the employer-controlled travel in between,” and also protecting workers who “have to park off-site and be bused into the job sites,” both of which are encompassed by the Morillion definition. 6 But as discussed above, it is not entirely clear that Morillion precludes compensating workers for the drive time, wait time, and badging time, so defining “first location” and/or “employermandated travel” could be dispositive for this issue. Huerta specifically contends the Security Gate was the “first location” the employer required him to be, and therefore the travel to and from that location was employermandated, not because he had to badge in but rather because managers told workers they had to go through the Gate before starting their shifts. It is true that there was at least a de facto required arrival time to be at the Gate for entry and exit: Workers had to sign in at the parking lots before their shift started; there was a strictly enforced speed limit on the only road between the Gate and parking lot; CSI knew how long the drive took; the Gate did not open until a certain time 5 Statement As to the Basis for Wage Order No. 16 Regarding Certain On-Site Occupations in the Construction, Drilling, Mining, and Logging Industries, at 10. https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/StatementAsTo TheBasisWageorder16.pdf. 6 Public Hearing, Department of Industrial Relations Industrial Welfare Commission, Sept. 21, 2000 (statements of Scott Wetch and Jerry Haft), https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/PUBHRG9211.htm. 20 HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS each morning; and CSI “gave workers a scheduled time when [they] could enter” the site, which sometimes was delayed; which taken together indicates CSI and the workers knew the Gate arrival time was de facto required for workers to begin or end their shifts on time. But de facto arrival times do not always signify that the drive was employer-mandated, compensable travel. Standard commutes need not be compensated in California, see Frlekin, 457 P.3d at 534, during which there are always de facto required arrival times for locations unrelated to the employer. For example, a worker might have to arrive at a public toll plaza by 7:00 a.m. if she hopes to miss traffic and arrive at the office by 7:30 a.m., but we do not think that means the commute from the toll plaza to the office is compensable. By contrast, Huerta might have had to arrive at such a public toll plaza by 7:00 a.m. in order to arrive at the employer’s premises—i.e., the Security Gate—by 7:30 a.m. and at his worksite by 8:00 a.m. And Overton cuts against Huerta’s theory of liability because, while the opinion did not discuss Section 5(A), the California Court of Appeal did not seem to think the travel from the parking lot to the job site was compensable merely because an employee had to make the trip once parked. On the other hand, employees in Overton had the option of reporting directly to the employee entrance, while Huerta had to report to the Security Gate. But because no court has specifically defined Section 5(A), California courts broadly construe wage orders to protect workers, see Mendiola, 340 P.3d at 359, and this question would be dispositive if decided in Huerta’s favor, we respectfully request that the California Supreme Court answer this certified question. HUERTA V. CSI ELEC. CONTRACTORS 21