9-0 Supreme Court: Security Screening Time Not Compensable Under FLSA

The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's decision and found that waiting for and passing through security screening is neither employees' principal activity nor integral and indispensable to their duties.

On December 9, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark 9-0 decision holding that employees' time spent waiting for and undergoing security screening after their shifts have ended is not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's decision—and consistent with the Department of Labor's position and decisions from the Second and Eleventh Circuits—the Court held that security screening was neither a "principal activity" that the workers were employed to perform nor "integral and indispensable" to their principal activities. In so holding, the Court for the first time defined what it means for a preliminary or postliminary activity to be "integral and indispensable." Invoking the "ordinary sense" of