JAVIER DEL RIO et al. v. AMAZON.COM SERVICES, INC., et al., SC 21109

United States District Court, District of Connecticut

Labor; Statutory Construction; Whether Employees Entitled to Compensation for Time Spent Going Through Security Screenings; Whether De Minimis Exception Applies to Employers' Duty to Pay Wages for Hours Worked. The plaintiffs were formerly employed by the defendant Amazon.com Services, LLC (Amazon), at two of its Connecticut warehouses, where Amazon merchandise was stored for later use in fulfilling customer orders. Between April, 2018, and March, 2020, Amazon required its warehouse employees to undergo security screenings before leaving the secured area of the fulfillment centers where merchandise is stored. Amazon arranged the timeclocks within the fulfillment centers so that employees had to clock out before going through security. Consequently, employees were not compensated for the time they spent undergoing the security screening procedures, which could last between a few seconds to several minutes per employee depending on what personal belongings the employee had with them. In 2021, the plaintiffs commenced the present action against Amazon and related entities in state court alleging that the defendants' failure to compensate them for the time spent going through the mandatory security procedure violated Connecticut's wage laws requiring employers to pay employees wages for "hours worked," including "all time during which an employee is required by the employer to be on the employer's premises . . . ." See General Statutes § 31-76b (2) (A). After removing the case to federal court, the defendants sought summary judgment on the basis of the United States Supreme Court's holding in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014), that the time spent in mandatory security screenings is not compensable under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act (PTPA), which exempts employers from liability for claims based on time spent performing "activities [that] are preliminary to or postliminary to [the] principal activity or activities" that the employee is employed to perform. See 28 U.S.C. § 254 (a) (2). Although Connecticut's wage laws contain no such exemption, the defendants argued that Integrity Staffing is nevertheless applicable because the state law was drafted to mirror federal law. Alternatively, they contended that the time that the plaintiffs actually spent in security lines was so insubstantial as to be noncompensable under the de minimis doctrine, which permits employers to disregard, for purposes of the FLSA, otherwise compensable work when the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours. In granting the defendants' motion, the district court determined that the question of whether the time spent undergoing security screenings constitutes "hours worked" for purposes of Connecticut wage law turns on the definition of the term "work." Because the state statutes do not define "work" and Connecticut appellate courts customarily look to federal law in interpreting state wage laws, the district court deemed it appropriate to look to federal precedent for guidance. Finding Integrity Staffing persuasive and that Connecticut's legislature had "intended to incorporate both the FLSA and the PTPA" into state wage laws, the court concluded that undergoing the security screening procedure here at issue constituted a noncompensable postliminary activity. In light of this conclusion, the district court did not address the defendants' de minimis defense. Upon appeal by the plaintiffs, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit certified the following questions, which the Connecticut Supreme Court accepted pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199b: (1) Under Connecticut's wage laws and regulations, must employees be compensated for the time spent going through mandatory security screenings at their place of employment? (2) Does a de minimis exception apply, and if so, what factors should be considered in determining whether the uncompensated time is de minimis?