The plaintiffs in this case were a class of technicians employed by Lojack to install alarms in customers? cars.?? The technicians were paid beginning when they arrived at the first job site and until they completed their final installation. The class claimed they should have been paid beginning with the work they did at home receiving assignments, mapping routes, and prioritizing jobs. ?They also claimed they should have been paid for work done at the end of the day, which involved uploading data to the company at home through a modem. ?The district court granted summary judgment to the employer.?? The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part.
The panel unanimously held that that the commute time in a company provided vehicle was non-compensable under federal law because of the Employer Commuter Flexibility Act. ?In this case, the employer did not place sufficient conditions on the employees? use of the vehicle during the commute to take it outside ECFA. ?The panel also unanimously held that the employees? preliminary activities at home were de minimis to the extent they were not related to the commute. ?The panel held that ?receiving, mapping and prioritizing jobs and? routes?? related? to the? employees?? commute. Judges Silverman and Callahan held that the after- work activities of data transmission were compensable. ?They reasoned there was no bright- line rule that anything less than 10 minutes a day was de minimis. ?Judge Hall dissented on the basis that the postliminary work was de minimis.?? She agreed with Judge Silverman however that the commute time was compensable under California law.?? Judge Callahan dissented from this holding. Rutti v. Vermillion, 596 F.3d 1046 (9th Cir. 2010) (Callahan, Hall, Silverman)