Fact Check: When Off-the-Clock Work Counts as Paid Time

Frlekin v. Apple Inc. — California Supreme Court (2020) held mandatory bag checks are compensable under California's "subject to control" test, even though Integrity Staffing v. Busk (U.S. Supreme Court, 2014) held the same conduct non-compensable federally. Apple settled for approximately $30M.

Portal-to-Portal Act (29 USC §254) excludes preliminary and postliminary activities from FLSA compensable time. Integrity Staffing v. Busk (2014) established the "integral and indispensable" test — only activities that satisfy this test are compensable federally.

Frlekin v. Apple (Cal. 2020) and Morillion v. Royal Packing (Cal. 2000) both apply California's "subject to the control of an employer" test from the IWC Wage Orders' definition of "hours worked." The test is materially broader than the federal "integral and indispensable" standard.

Bag checks: Frlekin. Mandatory transit: Morillion. Pre-shift system logins: IBP v. Alvarez continuous-workday rule applied to California's broader "control" test produces compensability the moment any principal activity begins.

Troester v. Starbucks Corp. (Cal. 2018) explicitly rejected the federal de minimis doctrine (29 CFR §785.47) for California state-law claims. The quick read translates "de minimis doctrine" as the "small amounts don't count" rule for plain-English readability.

Troester v. Starbucks — Starbucks shift supervisors performed transmitting daily sales data, locking the store, and similar closing tasks for 4–10 minutes after clocking out. The California Supreme Court held the few-minutes-daily pattern was fully compensable.

California's "subject to control" test, codified across all IWC Wage Orders, makes any required pre/post-shift activity compensable. Frlekin extended the rule to bag checks; Morillion to transit.

IBP v. Alvarez (2005) held that donning/doffing required protective gear is "integral and indispensable" to the principal activity and therefore compensable under the FLSA. Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo (2016) confirmed representative evidence can establish class-wide damages when employer records are deficient. The article's mistake #3.

Apple's Frlekin California settlement was approximately $30M. Integrity Staffing v. Busk (2014) held the same conduct non-compensable federally — the article's lead and Mistake #1 frame this federal-state divergence explicitly.

29 CFR §785.11 — "Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time." The constructive-knowledge standard applies: if the employer knew or should have known the work was happening, it's compensable. The article's mistake #5 covers the after-hours email/Slack pattern for remote non-exempt employees.

Synthesis from the article's through-line: "standardize to the strictest applicable rule. California-baseline time capture (every minute, no de minimis, all required activities recorded) satisfies every other state's requirement." The five specifics in the close (bag checks, logins, gear, closing tasks, after-hours messages) map to the article's mistakes #1, #2, #3, and #5.