Are Employees Owed Pay For Going Through Security? SCOTUS Will Decide

The U.S. Supreme Court granted cert on March 3, 2014 in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Jesse Busk to resolve a federal circuit split on whether time employees spend in security screenings is compensable under the FLSA. The issue is whether security screenings are quintessential "preliminary" or "postliminary" activities that are non-compensable under the FLSA (as held by the Second and Eleventh Circuits) or whether time spent in security screenings is potentially compensable because it is "integral and indispensable" to an employee's principal job duties (as held by the Ninth Circuit).

Under the FLSA, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947, time spent on activities that are "preliminary" or "postliminary" to the "principal activity or activities" that the employee "is employed to perform" is generally not compensable. 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). The exception to this rule is where these activities are "integral and indispensable" to an employee's principal