{"id":1359,"date":"2024-04-09T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T17:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2025-07-18T12:57:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T16:57:21","slug":"open-the-gates-california-supreme-court-addresses-compensable-time-at-security-checkpoints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/2024\/04\/09\/open-the-gates-california-supreme-court-addresses-compensable-time-at-security-checkpoints\/","title":{"rendered":"Open the Gates!\u00a0 California Supreme Court Addresses Compensable Time At Security Checkpoints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr.<\/b><\/p>\n

Duane Morris Takeaways:<\/i><\/b> In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, Case No. S275431, 2024 Cal. LEXIS 1446 (Cal. Mar. 25, 2024), the California Supreme Court held<\/a> that time spent on an employer\u2019s premises to undergo a security check could constitute compensable hours worked; that time spent traveling on an employer\u2019s premises may be compensable as employer-mandated travel time; and that employees covered by the Labor Code\u2019s \u201cconstruction occupation\u201d exception to meal periods may be entitled to minimum wage for the time spent working during an on-duty meal period. As a result, companies operating in California should review and adjust their pay policies on these issues to ensure complaint pay procedures.<\/i><\/p>\n

Case Background<\/b><\/p>\n

Plaintiff George Huerta worked at a solar power facility in Central California that was managed, in part, by Defendant CSI Electrical Contractors (\u201cCSI\u201d).\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 3.\u00a0 At the start and end of each shift, employees waited at the facility\u2019s entrance to partake in a security check, which included rolling down a window and showing an ID badge, a visual inspection of the vehicle, and at times, a search of the vehicle.\u00a0 Id.<\/i>\u00a0 Huerta alleged that CSI owed him compensation for the time spent waiting to pass through the security checkpoints.\u00a0 After passing through the checkpoint, Huerta then drove down the facility\u2019s roads to reach the employee parking lot.\u00a0 Huerta, again, claimed he should have been compensated for the time spent driving from the facility\u2019s entrance to the parking lot.\u00a0 Huerta was also covered by a collective bargaining agreement (\u201cCBA\u201d) that mandated an off-duty, unpaid 30-minute meal period.\u00a0 Id.<\/i>\u00a0 CSI\u2019s rules required workers to spend meal periods near their designated worksite for the shift, which Huerta alleged entitled him to additional compensation.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 4-5.<\/p>\n

Huerta filed a wage-and-hour class action against CSI seeking unpaid wages.\u00a0 He subsequently appealed his case to the Ninth Circuit, which, in turn, certified three questions to the California Supreme Court, including: (1) is time spent waiting to pass through a security checkpoint on an employer\u2019s premises compensable time; (2) does time spent traveling from a security checkpoint to the employee parking lot constitute compensable time; (3) are workers entitled to paid meal periods when they are prohibited from leaving the jobsite during meal periods?\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 1, 5.<\/p>\n

The California Supreme Court\u2019s Decision<\/b><\/p>\n

Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Order No. 16-2001 (\u201cWage Order No. 16\u201d) that governs wages, hours, and working conditions in the construction, drilling, logging, and mining industries covered Huerta\u2019s work at the facility.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 1.\u00a0 To answer the three certified questions, the California Supreme Court interpreted Wage Order No. 16 as follows:<\/p>\n

First, the Supreme Court held that under Wage Order No. 16, the time an employee spends on an employer\u2019s premise waiting to undergo a mandatory security check could constitute compensable \u201chours worked\u201d depending on the amount of \u201ccontrol\u201d exercised over the employee.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 11.\u00a0 The Supreme Court noted that CSI required Huerta to participate in the security check; confined him to the premises until he finished the entrance and exit procedure; and made him perform \u201cspecific and supervised tasks\u201d of waiting in his vehicle, rolling down his window, and allowing his personal vehicle to be searched by a guard.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 9-10.\u00a0 Thus, CSI exercised a sufficient amount of \u201ccontrol\u201d over Huerta to render the time spent passing through the security checkpoint compensable time worked under the Wage Order.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 9.<\/p>\n

Next, the Supreme Court held that under Wage Order No. 16, travel time may be compensable where (1) \u201cthe employer required the employee\u2019s presence at an initial location before mandating travel to a subsequent location\u201d and (2) \u201cthe employee\u2019s presence was required for an employment-related reason other than accessing the worksite.\u201d\u00a0 Id. <\/i>at 18.\u00a0 Here, the Supreme Court offered an example of a worker who reported to an initial jobsite, retrieved work supplies, received the work order, and then traveled to a second jobsite.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 16.\u00a0 Based on this example, the time spent travelling between jobsites represents compensable time.\u00a0 Id.<\/i>\u00a0 Since Huerta and CSI offered contradictory evidence on this point, the Supreme Court declined to express a \u201cview\u201d on whether the facility\u2019s security checkpoint was a \u201cfirst location\u201d that CSI mandated Huerta\u2019s presence.\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 17.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Supreme Court held that \u201can employee must be paid a minimum wage for meal periods when an employer\u2019s 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,\u201d even if the employee is covered by a CBA-meal period exception under a Wage Order. \u00a0Id.<\/i> at 33.\u00a0 The Supreme Court did not express any opinion on whether CSI\u2019s rules for meal periods prohibited Huerta from the leaving the facility during his 30-minute meal periods, but noted that \u201cif Huerta\u2019s \u2018unpaid meal period\u2019 is compensable under the wage order as \u2018hours worked,\u2019 he is entitled to seek compensation for that time under Labor Code section 1194.\u201d\u00a0 Id.<\/i> at 35.<\/p>\n

Implications For Employers<\/b><\/p>\n

California continues to redefine what constitutes compensable time worked at the start and end of shifts.\u00a0 This decision is a must read for employers with mandatory security checkpoints, and such employers are advised to review their security protocols as it may constitute compensable hours worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. Duane Morris Takeaways: In Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, Case No. S275431, 2024 Cal. LEXIS 1446 (Cal. Mar. 25, 2024), the California Supreme Court held that time spent on an employer\u2019s premises to undergo a security check could constitute compensable hours worked; that time spent traveling on an employer\u2019s premises … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Open the Gates!\u00a0 California Supreme Court Addresses Compensable Time At Security Checkpoints”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":583,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[30],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wage-hour-litigation"],"authors":[{"term_id":30,"user_id":583,"is_guest":0,"slug":"classactiondefense","display_name":"Class Action Defense","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2020\/10\/dmlogo.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Defense","first_name":"Class Action","job_title":"","user_url":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/classactiondefense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}