Plaintiffs were employed by Integrity, a temporary staffing firm. They were assigned to work at a warehouse maintained by Amazon.com where they prepared packages for shipment. All employees had to undergo security screening upon leaving the warehouse each day to reduce theft from the warehouses.
The Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit alleging that the time spent waiting to proceed through the security screenings was compensable under the FLSA. The District Court dismissed plaintiffs' complaint. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that when activities are "necessary to employees' primary work" and "done for [the employer]'s benefit," they are compensable as "integral and indispensable" activities.
The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, relying on the Portal-to-Portal Act. The Act exempts employers from having to pay workers for the time they spend on activities that take place before and after the workday, for instance, the time it takes an employee to walk from his or her car to the time clock. The Supreme Court held that time spent in connection with the security screening was a "noncompensable postliminary activit[y]" under the Act, as they "were not the 'principal . . . activities which [the] employee is employed to perform.'" The Court also found the security screenings were not "integral and indispensable" to the employees' work.
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