2d Issues Important FLSA Decision Defining Work

Singh v. City of New York, ___F.3d ___(2d Cir. April 29, 2008), is an important FLSA decision because the court deals with modern day commute to and from work for many city goers like me. The issue in this case was whether travel time counted for FLSA Overtime purposes. Normally, the answer would be an easy one-No. However, what made this case a bit unusual was that the employees were required to take home with them 15-20 pounds of work material so they would have it for the next day. That slowed them up and made their commute a bit more difficult as any NYC subway rider could attest to.

In a nutshell, the court ruled against the plaintiffs because it found that such work was de minimis. As the court stated:

As noted earlier, because such time occurs outside the normal working hours, it is noncompensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act unless carrying inspection materials is an integral and indispensable part of the plaintiffs’ inspecting duties. Because we conclude below that the
additional commuting time in this case is de minimis as a matter of law, we do not resolve this
issue and instead assume without deciding that carrying inspection documents is an integral and
indispensable part of the plaintiffs’ inspecting duties.
The de minimis doctrine permits employers to disregard, for purposes of the FLSA,
otherwise compensable work “[w]hen the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes
of work beyond the scheduled working hours.” Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S.
680, 692 (1946). “It is only when an employee is required to give up a substantial measure of his
time and effort that compensable working time is involved.” Id. This Court considers three
factors in determining whether otherwise compensable time should be considered de minimis: (1)the practical administrative difficulty of recording additional time; (2) the size of the claim in the aggregate; and (3) whether the claimants performed the work on a regular basis. See N.Y. City Transit Auth., 45 F.3d at 652.
Based on these factors, we conclude that any additional commuting time in this case is de
minimis as a matter of law.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein