Opinion ID: $opinion_id
Heading Depth: 1.0
Heading Rank: 6

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Text: Respondent in No. 04-66, Barber Foods, Inc. (Barber), operates a poultry processing plant in Portland, Maine, that employs about 300 production workers. These employees operate six production lines and perform a variety of tasks that require different combinations of protective clothing. They are paid by the hour from the time they punch in to computerized timeclocks located at the entrances to the production floor.

Petitioners are Barber employees and former employees who brought this action to recover compensation for alleged unrecorded work covered by the FLSA. Specifically, they claimed that Barber's failure to compensate them for (a) donning and doffing required protective gear and (b) the attendant walking and waiting violated the statute.

After extensive discovery, the Magistrate Judge issued a comprehensive opinion analyzing the facts in detail, and recommending the entry of partial summary judgment in favor of Barber. That opinion, which was later adopted by the District Court for Maine, included two critical rulings.

First, the Magistrate Judge held that "the donning and doffing of clothing and equipment required by the defendant or by government regulation, as opposed to clothing and equipment which employees choose to wear or use at their option, is an integral part of the plaintiffs' work [and therefore are] not excluded from compensation under the Portalto-Portal Act as preliminary or postliminary activities." App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 04-66, pp. 36a-40a.

Second, the Magistrate Judge rejected petitioners' claims for "compensation for the time spent before obtaining their clothing and equipment." Id., at 33a. Such time, in the Magistrate Judge's view, "could [not] reasonably be construed to be an integral part of employees' work activities any more than walking to the cage from which hairnets and earplugs are dispensed . . . ." Ibid. Accordingly, Barber was "entitled to summary judgment on any claims based on time spent walking from the plant entrances to an employee's workstation, locker, time clock or site where clothing and equipment required to be worn on the job is to be obtained and any claims based on time spent waiting to punch in or out for such clothing or equipment." Id., at 33a-34a.

The Magistrate Judge's opinion did not specifically address the question whether the walking time between the production line and the place of donning and doffing was encompassed by § 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act, and thus excluded from coverage under the FLSA. Whatever the intended scope of the Magistrate's grant of partial summary judgment, the questions submitted to the jury after trial asked jurors to consider only whether Barber was required to compensate petitioners for the time they spent actually donning and doffing various gear.

Before the case was submitted to the jury, the parties stipulated that four categories of workers_x0097_rotating, setup, meatroom, and shipping and receiving associates_x0097_were required to don protective gear at the beginning of their shifts and were required to doff this gear at the end of their shifts. The jury then made factual findings with regard to the amount of time reasonably required for each category of employees to don and doff such items; the jury concluded that such time was de minimis and therefore not compensable. The jury further concluded that two other categories of employees_x0097_maintenance and sanitation associates_x0097_were not required to don protective gear before starting their shifts.[7] Accordingly, the jury ruled for Barber on all counts.

On appeal, petitioners argued, among other things, that the District Court had improperly excluded as noncompensable the time employees spend walking to the production floor after donning required safety gear and the time they spend walking from the production floor to the area where they doff such gear. The Court of Appeals rejected petitioners' argument, concluding that such walking time was a species of preliminary and postliminary activity excluded from FLSA coverage by §§ 4(a)(1) and (2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act. 360 F.3d, at 281. As we have explained in our discussion of IBP's submission, see Part II, supra, that categorical conclusion was incorrect.

Petitioners also argued in the Court of Appeals that the waiting time associated with the donning and doffing of clothes was compensable. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the waiting time qualified as a "preliminary or postliminary activity" and thus was excluded from FLSA coverage by the Portal-to-Portal Act. 360 F.3d, at 282. Our analysis in Part II, supra, demonstrates that the Court of Appeals was incorrect with regard to the predoffing waiting time. Because doffing gear that is "integral and indispensable" to employees' work is a "principal activity" under the statute, the continuous workday rule mandates that time spent waiting to doff is not affected by the Portal-to-Portal Act and is instead covered by the FLSA.

The time spent waiting to don_x0097_time that elapses before the principal activity of donning integral and indispensable gear_x0097_presents the quite different question whether it should have the effect of advancing the time when the workday begins. Barber argues that such predonning waiting time is explicitly covered by § 4(a)(2) of the Portal-to-Portal Act, which, as noted above, excludes "activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to [a] principal activity or activities" from the scope of the FLSA. 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)(2).

By contrast, petitioners, supported by the United States as amicus curiae, maintain that the predonning waiting time is "integral and indispensable" to the "principal activity" of donning, and is therefore itself a principal activity. However, unlike the donning of certain types of protective gear, which is always essential if the worker is to do his job, the waiting may or may not be necessary in particular situations or for every employee. It is certainly not "integral and indispensable" in the same sense that the donning is. It does, however, always comfortably qualify as a "preliminary" activity.

We thus do not agree with petitioners that the predonning waiting time at issue in this case is a "principal activity" under § 4(a).[8] As Barber points out, the fact that certain preshift activities are necessary for employees to engage in their principal activities does not mean that those preshift activities are "integral and indispensable" to a "principal activity" under Steiner. For example, walking from a timeclock near the factory gate to a workstation is certainly necessary for employees to begin their work, but it is indisputable that the Portal-to-Portal Act evinces Congress' intent to repudiate Anderson's holding that such walking time was compensable under the FLSA. We discern no limiting principle that would allow us to conclude that the waiting time in dispute here is a "principal activity" under § 4(a), without also leading to the logical (but untenable) conclusion that the walking time at issue in Anderson would be a "principal activity" under § 4(a) and would thus be unaffected by the Portal-to-Portal Act.

The Government also relies on a regulation promulgated by the Secretary of Labor as supporting petitioners' view. That regulation, 29 CFR § 790.7(h) (2005), states that when an employee "is required by his employer to report at a particular hour at his workbench or other place where he performs his principal activity, if the employee is there at that hour ready and willing to work but for some reason beyond his control there is no work for him to perform until some time has elapsed, waiting for work would be an integral part of the employee's principal activities." That regulation would be applicable if Barber required its workers to report to the changing area at a specific time only to find that no protective gear was available until after some time had elapsed, but there is no such evidence in the record in this case.

More pertinent, we believe, is the portion of § 790.7 that characterizes the time that employees must spend waiting to check in or waiting to receive their paychecks as generally a "preliminary" activity covered by the Portal-to-Portal Act. See § 790.7(g). That regulation is fully consistent with the statutory provisions that allow the compensability of such collateral activities to depend on either the agreement of the parties or the custom and practice in the particular industry.

In short, we are not persuaded that such waiting_x0097_which in this case is two steps removed from the productive activity on the assembly line_x0097_is "integral and indispensable" to a "principal activity" that identifies the time when the continuous workday begins. Accordingly, we hold that § 4(a)(2) excludes from the scope of the FLSA the time employees spend waiting to don the first piece of gear that marks the beginning of the continuous workday.