Amazon’s Pennsylvania Loss Boosts Fever Check, Other Wage Suits
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling that Amazon.com Inc. must compensate workers for time in security lines handed plaintiffs’ lawyers a pair of powerful new weapons to wield in wage-and-hour lawsuits targeting unpaid time, such as claims for Covid-screening pay.
Security-check time is compensable under state law because companies must pay employees when they’re required to be on site, regardless if they’re engaged in work duties, the state high court ruled July 21. Such time doesn’t need to be paid under federal law.
And perhaps just as important, the court also held that state wage law doesn’t recognize an exception for short time periods that are so trivial they don’t merit compensation, which is known as “de minimis” time.
“The ruling didn’t seem to align with what you’d expect from Pennsylvania,” Jason Reisman, a management-side employment attorney with Blank Rome LLP in Philadelphia. “We’re not Texas, but we’re also not California.”
Employers operating in Pennsylvania should reconsider their compensation and work policies to avoid facing lawsuits fueled by the ruling, such as claims challenging time-card rounding practices, and seeking payment for Covid-related health screening and short tasks done outside of normal work hours, attorneys said.
To read the full article, please click here.
“Amazon’s Pennsylvania Loss Boosts Fever Check, Other Wage Suits,” by Robert Iafolla was published in Bloomberg Law on July 22, 2021.