USA - Employment Case Law

The links below are for selected case law or case law analysis regarding employment law for specific States. Some of the following cases may have been appealed since these references have been updated which may have resulted in a change to the original outcome.

 

UNITED STATES

 

Working Off-the-Clock

Indiana

California

New Mexico

 

Rounding Rules

California

903 [“In the absence of controlling or conflicting California law, California courts generally look to federal regulations under the FLSA for guidance.”];

907 [“Relying on the DOL rounding standard, we have concluded that the rule in California is that an employer is entitled to use the nearest-tenth rounding policy if the rounding policy is fair and neutral on its face and ‘it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.'”]

Div. Lab. Standards Enforcement, The DLSE Enforcement Policies and Interpretations Manual (Revised) at 47.1 (April 2017), available here; 785.48(b) [“It has been found that in some industries, particularly where time clocks are used, there has been the practice for many years of recording the employees’ starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Presumably, this arrangement averages out so that the employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work. For enforcement purposes this practice of computing working time will be accepted, provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.”].

785.47 [“In recording working time under the Act, insubstantial or insignificant periods of time beyond the scheduled working hours, which cannot as a practical administrative matter be precisely recorded for payroll purposes, may be disregarded. The courts have held that such trifles are de minimis.”].

Arizona

Adair v. Wis. Bell, Inc. (E.D.Wis. Sep. 11, 2008, No. 08-C-280) 2008 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 68942, at *30 [“[T]he practice of rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest tenth or quarter hour, is expressly approved by the FLSA regulations as long as it is used in a manner that does not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate employees for all of the time they have worked.”].

 

Rounding Rules and Grace Periods

California

907⁠–⁠909 [“The parties agree (at least for purposes of this writ petition) that under California law a grace period (the time during which an employee punches in before his or her compensable pay is triggered) is allowed if the employee is not working or is not under the employer’s control.”]

235, 252 [“Because employees are required to comply with company policy that prohibits them from working during the 10-minute grace period, if an employee punches into the system during the grace period, the employee is paid based on his or her scheduled start and stop time, rather than the punch time.”]

 

Meal Time Rounding Rules

California

 

Hours Worked

California

575, 594 [defining “hours worked” under California’s wage and hour laws to include all time in which the employee is “suffered or permitted to work,” as well as the “time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer”].

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: Jul 2021

 

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