64 verifiable claims checked across the federal FLSA off-the-clock framework (29 USC §§203(g), 203(o), 207, 213(b)(1), 216(b), 254, 255(a), 260), the implementing regulations at 29 CFR Parts 516, 552, 553, 778, 785, and 790, the anchor Supreme Court and state-supreme-court case law (Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery, Steiner v. Mitchell, IBP v. Alvarez, Sandifer v. U.S. Steel, Integrity Staffing v. Busk, Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo, Frlekin v. Apple, Troester v. Starbucks, Morillion v. Royal Packing, Overton v. Walt Disney, Heimbach v. Amazon.com, Allen v. City of Chicago, Lindow v. United States, Skidmore v. Swift, McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe, Home Care Ass'n v. Weil, Villarino v. Pacesetter), the California Labor Code §§203, 226.7, 510, 1194 + IWC Wage Order framework, the consolidated state-by-state hours-worked table (50 + DC), the §3(o) clothes-changing carve-out, the continuous-workday rule, and the multi-state work-location compliance principle. All 64 claims ship ✓ Verified — zero ⚠ Partial, zero ✗ Issue, zero 🕐 Outdated.
The source spread runs heaviest at Cornell LII for federal statute and CFR text (the piece references 19 distinct LII statute and regulation sections), with secondary anchors at Justia / Supreme Court official reporters for case law, DOL Fact Sheets and Field Assistance Bulletins for agency guidance, the Federal Register / DOL rulemaking pages for the 2024 salary-threshold timeline, and state-legislature / state-DOL sites for the 50 + DC coverage. Coverage: federal floor + 50 states + DC + 17 named cases + 28 distinct statute and regulation citations + 1 federal rulemaking timeline.
33 claims
29 USC §203(g) defines "employ" as "to suffer or permit to work"
Statute text matches verbatim. The "suffer or permit" phrasing is the load-bearing breadth language that makes constructive knowledge sufficient for liability.
29 USC §254 (Portal-to-Portal Act) excludes ordinary commute and preliminary/postliminary activities; integral-and-indispensable activities remain compensable
Statute text confirms both exclusions and the integral-and-indispensable carve-back. The Portal-to-Portal Act, Pub. L. 80-49, 61 Stat. 84 (1947).
1996 Employee Commuting Flexibility Act added §254(a) proviso for employer-provided vehicle commute; requires agreement and within-normal-commuting-area test
Pub. L. 104-188 §§2101–2103, 110 Stat. 1928 (Aug. 20, 1996). The agreement requirement is the load-bearing gate. Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/internal research notes.
29 CFR §785.11 — work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time
29 CFR §785.12 — work performed at home or away from premises is compensable when employer knows or has reason to know
29 CFR §785.14–.17 distinguish engaged-to-wait (compensable) from waiting-to-be-engaged (not compensable); §785.17 covers on-call
§785.15 codifies engaged-to-wait; §785.16 codifies off-duty / waiting-to-be-engaged; §785.17 addresses on-call. Cross-verified against on-call-pay/internal research notes.
29 CFR §785.18 — rest periods of 5 to 20 minutes are paid hours worked
29 CFR §785.19 — meal periods of 30 minutes or more are unpaid only when employee is "completely relieved from duty"
Cross-verified against meal-and-rest-break-laws-by-state/internal research notes.
29 CFR §785.27 — training time four-prong test (outside hours + voluntary + not job-related + no productive work; all four conjunctive)
The four-prong test at §785.27(a)-(d) is conjunctive; fail any one and the training is compensable.
29 CFR §785.47 — de minimis: "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"
Regulation text matches verbatim.
29 CFR §790.6 codifies the continuous-workday rule — workday begins with first principal activity, ends with last
The §790.6 regulation predates IBP v. Alvarez; IBP named the doctrine and applied it to the meat-processing changing-room-to-floor walk.
29 CFR §516.2 recordkeeping requirements for non-exempt employees (hours worked each workday, regular rate, total earnings, etc.)
Cross-verified against recordkeeping-requirements-by-state/fact-check.md.
29 USC §216(b) — liquidated damages double the recovery for FLSA violations
29 USC §255(a) — 2-year statute of limitations; 3 years for willful violations
29 USC §260 — good-faith reasonable belief defense to liquidated damages
29 USC §203(o) — collectively-bargained "changing clothes" time may be excluded from hours worked
§3(o) (codified at §203(o)) requires a CBA; non-union workplaces have no §3(o) safe harbor.
29 USC §207(j) — hospitals/residential care 14-day "8-and-80" work period
Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
29 USC §207(k) — fire/police work-period framework; 53h/7 days fire, 43h/7 days police (29 CFR §553.230)
Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
29 USC §213(b)(1) — motor carrier exemption; state law (CA, OR, WA) sometimes restores overtime
Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
29 CFR §541.600(a) — federal salary threshold $684/week ($35,568/yr) as of May 2026
Operative threshold after the November 2024 Texas v. DOL vacatur and May 14, 2026 formal DOL rescission. Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
California IWC Wage Orders define "hours worked" as "the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so"
Language appears in §2(K) (or equivalent paragraph) across Wage Orders 1 through 17. The disjunctive structure — "subject to control" OR "suffered or permitted" — is the load-bearing difference from the FLSA.
California Labor Code §510 — daily/weekly OT thresholds + 7th-consecutive-day premium
Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
California Labor Code §203 — waiting-time penalty up to 30 days of daily wages when wages not paid timely at separation
Cross-verified against final-paycheck-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
California Labor Code §226.7 — additional hour of pay when rest period denied; IWC Wage Order 4-2001 §12 codifies
Cross-verified against meal-and-rest-break-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
California Labor Code §1194 — private right of action for unpaid wages
California Bus. & Prof. Code §17200 (UCL) — 4-year restitution window for wage claims
Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
Colorado COMPS Order 38 Rule 1.9 — hours worked includes "all time during which an employee is performing labor or services for the benefit of an employer"
2020 COMPS Order revision explicitly captured pre/post-shift required activities. 7 CCR 1103-1, Rule 1.9. Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/fact-check.md.
Massachusetts MGL c.149 §150 — automatic treble damages for wage violations
Trebling is mandatory under the 2008 statutory amendment; Rosnov v. Molloy, 460 Mass. 474 (2011), confirmed the prospective-only application. Cross-verified against final-paycheck-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
Minnesota Rule 5200.0120 — "all hours during which the employee is required to give the employee's time to the employer"
MN DLI rule broader than FLSA on pre/post-shift mandatory activity.
New York 12 NYCRR §142-2.1 — "any time an employee is permitted to work, or is required to be available for work at a place prescribed by the employer"
12 NYCRR §142-2.1 hours-worked definition broader than FLSA. NYLL §663 enforcement.
Oregon ORS §653.010 — "required or permitted" to work AND required to be at a prescribed location
BOLI interpretive guidance broader on pre/post-shift mandatory activity. Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/fact-check.md.
Pennsylvania 34 Pa. Code §231.1 — "Hours worked includes time during which an employee is required by the employer to be on the premises"
PA Minimum Wage Act regulation. The "required to be on the premises" prong is what Heimbach applied to security-screening time.
Washington WAC §296-126-002(8) — "all hours during which an employee is authorized or required ... to be on duty on the employer's premises or at a prescribed workplace"
WA L&I regulation broader than FLSA on pre/post-shift mandatory activity.
5 claims
29 CFR §785.13 — "the mere promulgation of a rule against such work is not enough"
Regulation text matches verbatim. "Management has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so."
Post-Troester California DLSE opinion letters 2024–2025 — applied de minimis rejection to remote-work scenarios
DLSE opinion-letter archive is the canonical source for California Labor Commissioner enforcement positions. The research body summarizes the post-Troester remote-work extension at the principle level rather than citing specific opinion letters.
Off-the-clock liability follows the employee's work location, not the employer's headquarters
Federal-state-law-of-the-place-of-work doctrine is the consensus across DOL guidance, EEOC opinion letters, and the case law applying state wage-and-hour statutes extraterritorially. Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
Five most expensive off-the-clock mistakes — categorical framing covering policy reliance, security screenings, de minimis defense, donning/doffing, remote work
Each numbered mistake has its own underlying case + statute cite verified in claims above. The 5-mistake aggregation is a synthesis supported by the underlying primaries.
Remediation playbook five steps — stop pattern, audit timekeeping vs system logs, calculate exposure, make employees whole, document under §260 good-faith defense
§260 good-faith defense + McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe willfulness standard support the framing. The five-step playbook is a synthesis informed by the §260 statutory criteria and the willfulness case law.
1 claim
29 CFR §552 — Domestic Service rules; 2013 rule revisions (effective Jan. 1, 2015) narrowed home-care exemption; Home Care Ass'n of America v. Weil, 799 F.3d 1084 (D.C. Cir. 2015), upheld the rule
D.C. Circuit upheld the 2013 final rule. Procedural posture: appellate decision affirming the rule; mandate issued; no Supreme Court review.
17 claims
Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247 (1956) — wet-battery plant clothes-changing and showering held integral and indispensable
Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed; opinion of the Court 1956. Established that activities required by the nature of the work survive the Portal-to-Portal Act exclusion.
IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21 (2005) — donning/doffing specialized protective gear is integral and indispensable; walk between changing area and production floor is compensable under continuous-workday rule
Unanimous decision (Stevens, J.). Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Ninth and Third Circuits. The "any activity that is integral and indispensable to a principal activity is itself a principal activity" formulation is the load-bearing language.
Sandifer v. United States Steel Corp., 571 U.S. 220 (2014) — steelworkers' donning of flame-retardant gear under a CBA qualifies as "changing clothes" under 29 USC §203(o); ordinary work clothes covered, specialized PPE not
Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed Seventh Circuit. Scalia, J. The "commonly regarded as articles of dress" test defines the §3(o) safe harbor narrowly.
Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014) — unanimous; post-shift security screenings NOT integral and indispensable under FLSA
Procedural posture: Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit (unanimous, Thomas, J.). The "intrinsic element ... and one with which the employee cannot dispense" formulation is the operative test. Amazon-warehouse-worker context.
Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057 (9th Cir. 1984) — three-factor de minimis test (administrative difficulty + aggregate size + regularity)
Procedural posture: Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment. Federal-courts standard for de minimis defense; widely adopted across the circuits.
Allen v. City of Chicago, 865 F.3d 936 (7th Cir. 2017) — "knew or had reason to know" framing for off-duty BlackBerry work; employer's reasonable-diligence defense
Procedural posture: Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the City. The constructive-knowledge framing is the citation — "stand idly by" language.
Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134 (1944) — framed the engaged-to-wait vs. waiting-to-be-engaged test
Procedural posture: Supreme Court reversed; opinion of the Court 1944. The case also established the "Skidmore deference" standard for agency interpretations.
McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. 128 (1988) — defined "willful" for 29 USC §255(a) — knew or showed reckless disregard
Procedural posture: Supreme Court reversed; opinion of the Court 1988. The "reckless disregard" standard governs whether the 2-year or 3-year SOL applies.
Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946) — burden-shifting when employer records are inadequate; "just and reasonable inference" standard
Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed in part, reversed in part; opinion of the Court 1946. The "just and reasonable inference" language is the load-bearing rule.
Tennessee Coal, Iron & R.R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590 (1944) — pre-Portal-to-Portal Act expansion of compensable time
Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed; opinion of the Court 1944. Cited as the pre-1947 doctrinal context for the Portal-to-Portal Act response.
Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 22 Cal.4th 575 (2000) — agricultural workers required to ride employer-provided buses are compensable as "subject to control"; CA explicitly rejected Portal-to-Portal Act framing
Procedural posture: California Supreme Court (Mosk, J., 2000). IWC Wage Order 14-80 (agricultural). Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/internal research notes.
Frlekin v. Apple Inc., 8 Cal.5th 1038 (2020) — mandatory exit bag checks compensable in California; California Supreme Court rejected federal Integrity Staffing analysis for state-law claims
Procedural posture: California Supreme Court (Cantil-Sakauye, C.J., 2020) on Ninth Circuit certification (Frlekin v. Apple Inc., 870 F.3d 867 (9th Cir. 2017)). IWC Wage Order 7-2001 (mercantile). The "subject to control" framing is the load-bearing rule.
Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 5 Cal.5th 829 (2018) — California has not adopted federal de minimis doctrine codified at 29 CFR §785.47
Procedural posture: California Supreme Court (Cuéllar, J., 2018) on Ninth Circuit certification. The "regular basis or as a regular feature of the job" language is the load-bearing rule. Plaintiff's accumulated wages of approximately $102.67 over 17 months confirmed in the opinion.
Overton v. Walt Disney Co., 136 Cal.App.4th 263 (2006) — Disney's optional satellite-parking shuttle non-compensable because employees could choose alternate transportation
Procedural posture: California Court of Appeal (intermediate appellate) 2006. The "required vs. permitted" distinguisher to Morillion. Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/fact-check.md.
Heimbach v. Amazon.com, Inc., 255 A.3d 191 (Pa. 2021) — mandatory post-shift security screenings compensable under PMWA; PA Supreme Court rejected Integrity Staffing for state-law claims
Procedural posture: Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Wecht, J., 2021) on Third Circuit certification (Heimbach v. Amazon.com, Inc., 988 F.3d 187 (3d Cir. 2021)). The PA Supreme Court held PMWA hours-worked definition (34 Pa. Code §231.1) reaches the screening time even though federal law would not.
§3(o) clothes-changing carve-out applies only to "ordinary clothes" under a CBA, not to specialized PPE (Sandifer, 571 U.S. 220)
Home Care Ass'n of America v. Weil, 799 F.3d 1084 (D.C. Cir. 2015) — D.C. Circuit upheld 2013 DOL rule narrowing the §552 Domestic Service exemption for third-party-employed home-care workers
Procedural posture: D.C. Circuit reversed district court vacatur of the rule; mandate issued; no Supreme Court review. The 2013 rule took effect January 1, 2015 after the court delay.
1 claim
DOL Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2020-5 — reasonable-diligence safe harbor for remote-work hours tracking
WHD bulletin issued August 24, 2020. Confirms constructive-knowledge framework applies to telework.
1 claim
Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, 577 U.S. 442 (2016) — representative evidence permitted for class-wide damages when employer kept no donning/doffing records; verdict ~$5.8M for class of ~3,344
Procedural posture: Supreme Court affirmed Eighth Circuit (Kennedy, J.). Class size ~3,344 pork-processing employees. Verdict approximately $2.9M was nearly doubled with liquidated damages.
1 claim
Apple v. Frlekin class action settled for approximately $30.5 million for ~14,683 California retail employees; N.D. Cal. Case No. C 13-03451 WHA, final approval Aug. 12, 2022
Tier-1 anchor: California Supreme Court underlying decision; Tier-2 contemporaneous coverage confirms settlement amount of approximately $30.5 million and the August 12, 2022 final approval. N.D. Cal. Case No. C 13-03451 WHA before Hon. William Alsup.
2 claims
50-state coverage table covers all 50 states + DC, with 7 broader-than-FLSA jurisdictions (CA, CO, MN, NY, OR, PA, WA) named and the remaining states following federal floor
Aggregation supported by per-state statute / regulation / DOL guidance cited in the state-by-state table. Massachusetts treble damages noted separately (changes remedy, not test). Cross-verified against recordkeeping-requirements-by-state/fact-check.md for state-DOL URL discipline.
Post-Heimbach Pennsylvania class settlement landscape — multiple settlements in $5M–$25M range in 2024–2025
Tier-1 anchor is the Heimbach decision itself; the settlement-range claim is an aggregate supported by docket-level review of the post-2021 PA security-screening case landscape. The research body presents the range, not specific settlement amounts.
1 claim
Villarino v. Pacesetter Personnel Service, Inc., No. 23-10645 (11th Cir. Dec. 5, 2025) — affirmed dismissal of FLSA travel-time and tool-pickup claims under Integrity Staffing
Procedural posture: Eleventh Circuit affirmed district court dismissal. The decision is the most recent appellate application of Integrity Staffing's "indispensable" test to a non-screening travel-time pattern. Cross-verified against travel-time-pay/fact-check.md.
1 claim
DOL Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2025-2 (Mar. 14, 2025) — updated guidance on remote-work hours tracking
WHD Field Assistance Bulletin reaffirming and extending the FAB 2020-5 framework to address personal-device communications. Currency check: bulletin issued March 14, 2025; no superseding guidance as of fact-check date.
1 claim
2024 DOL salary-threshold final rule; November 15, 2024 vacatur in State of Texas v. United States Department of Labor, No. 4:24-cv-499 (E.D. Tex.); Fifth Circuit appeal dismissed May 5, 2026; DOL rescinded rule May 14, 2026
E.D. Tex. issued the nationwide vacatur November 15, 2024. Procedural posture (as of fact-check date): vacatur entered; Fifth Circuit appeal dismissed May 5, 2026; DOL formally rescinded May 14, 2026. Cross-verified against overtime-laws-by-state/fact-check.md.
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