No More Free Security Checks in California

Santa Clara, CAIn a recent California Supreme Court ruling, a worker’s time spent on an employer’s premises undergoing security checks is compensable as hours worked, but time spent driving from the security gate to the parking lot does not qualify as “hours worked”. This California labor law decision emphasizes that the extent of employer control is what mainly defines the classification of "hours worked."

Plaintiff George Huerta initially filed a wage-and-hour class action lawsuit in 2018 against CSI Electrical Contractors, a Silicon Valley-based MYR Group Inc. subsidiary, over mandated security checks on a construction site at the California Flats Solar Project, seeking unpaid wages for times he claimed qualified as "hours worked" under Wage Order No. 16-200. Huerta claimed that CSI employees were owed wages for time spent passing through site security checks and commuting between the security gate and parking areas. As well, he claimed that the restrictions placed on employees during meal times, specifically the prohibition against leaving the premises, meant that CSI employees were owed meal period premiums.

CSI won summary judgment on Huerta’s claims, but Huerta appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reported Law360. The Ninth Circuit in July 2022 determined that California law “was unsettled” and in Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, it certified three key questions to the Supreme Court of California:

1. Is time spent on an employer’s premises in a personal vehicle and waiting to scan an identification badge, have security guards peer into the vehicle, and then exit a Security Gate compensable as hours worked?

Answer: An employee’s time spent on an employer’s premises awaiting and undergoing an employer-mandated exit procedure that includes the employer’s visual inspection of the employee’s personal vehicle is compensable as hours worked.

2. Is time spent on the employer’s premises in a personal vehicle, driving between the Security Gate and the employee parking lots, while subject to certain rules from the employer, compensable as ‘hours worked’ or as ‘employer-mandated travel’?

Answer: The time that an employee spends traveling between the Security Gate and the employee parking lots is compensable as “employer-mandated travel” if the Security Gate was the first location where the employee’s presence was required for an employment-related reason other than the practical necessity of accessing the worksite.

Separately, this travel time is not compensable as “hours worked” because an employer’s imposition of ordinary workplace rules on employees during their drive to the worksite in a personal vehicle does not create the requisite level of employer control.

3. Is time spent on the employer’s premises, when workers are prohibited from leaving but not required to engage in employer-mandated activities, compensable as ‘hours worked’?

Answer: When an employee is covered by a collective bargaining agreement that complies with Labor Code section 512, subdivision (e) and Wage Order No. 16, section 10(E), and provides the employee with an “unpaid meal period,” that time is nonetheless compensable under the wage order as “hours worked” if the employer prohibits the employee from leaving the employer’s premises or a designated area during the meal period and if this prohibition prevents the employee from engaging in otherwise feasible personal activities. An employee may bring an action under Labor Code section 1194 to enforce the wage order and recover unpaid wages for that time.

"Any time that an employee spends working is compensable as 'hours worked'; this includes an on-duty meal period, which by definition is a meal period in which the employee is not relieved of all work obligations," the justices said. "An employee must be paid a minimum wage for meal periods when an employer's prohibition on leaving the premises or a particular area forecloses the employee from engaging in activities he or she could otherwise engage in if permitted to leave…Under these circumstances, the employee remains under the employer's control despite being relieved of official duties because the employer is restraining the employee from engaging in otherwise feasible activities."

Employers might want to review their security, travel, and meal period policies after The Huerta ruling to ensure they are in compliance with California labor laws. The cases are George Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, case number S275431, in the Supreme Court of California, and George Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors et al., case number 21-16201, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.