A technician working in California is, like his colleagues, paid only from the time he arrives at his first customer’s home until he leaves the last customer’s home. He maintained that he and all other company technicians should be paid for the extra time, because they are required to perform some tasks before leaving home and additional ones after arriving home. He sued for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

What happened. “Rowland” and some 450 other technicians work around the country for car alarm firm LoJack. In court, he asserted that the need to contact the company each morning for assignments, prioritize them, and map out his routes constituted work that should be compensated. Under the concept of the “continuous workday,” then, he and others should also be compensated for their commute time in company-owned vehicles. He also cited tasks he had to perform on arriving home, and not before 7 p.m.—transmitting data about his day’s work from a handheld computer device to the company in a process that was often unsuccessful and had to be repeated. By the same token, he argued, since he had to do this “postliminary” work, he and the others should also be compensated for their return commutes.

A federal district court judge reviewed federal and California wage laws and ruled that none of the extra time to which Rowland pointed was compensable. He appealed that decision to the 9th Circuit, which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

What the court said. Appellate judges reviewed the 1996 federal Employee Commuting Flexibility Act (ECFA), which amended the Portal-to-Portal Act. The amendment states that employers need not pay employees for time they spend traveling to and from the place(s)—customers’ homes, in this case—where their principal activities are performed. But what about the pre- and postliminary tasks? Those are often not compensable because they take little time and are incidental to the principal activities.

Judges agreed with the district judge that the morning tasks are primarily related to technicians’ commutes, so they aren’t compensable. But Rowland charged that he could spend up to 15 minutes each evening on transmissions, and judges were unsure whether that time should be paid. They sent the case back to district court for reconsideration. Rutti v. LoJack, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, No. 07-56599 (8/21/09).

Point to remember: A pre-1996 DOL opinion letter suggested employees might be compensated for commuting time if driving a company vehicle was a condition of employment. But ECFA changed that.