Castaneda v. JBS United States, LLC, s. 14–1217

Citation819 F.3d 1237
Decision Date31 March 2016
Docket NumberNos. 14–1217,14–1221.,s. 14–1217
Parties Esmeralda CASTANEDA; Joshua J. Peters; Andrew Ruiz; Angelica Gutierrez; Joann S. Lopez; Mariano Gallegos; Tim Praeuner; Dawn Allmer; Samuel Sanchez; Adan Abdullahi; Amino N. Galal; Istahil Farah Jama; Abdirizak M. Abdi; Muhyadin Au; Mohamed Horor; Habibo A. Elmi; Hibo H. Maalin; Faiuma Jama; Batula Awl; Sadi M. Adan; Abdirizak Ahmed; Ahmed Ali Gelle; Habiba Abdi; Kuresha S. Noor; Mohamed Isse; Mohamed A. Mohamed; Abdi Abdirahman; Mohamed Mohamed; Mohamed Burow; Israd Ibrahim; Abdi Jama; Abdiaziz Osman; Ibrahim O. Hassan; Nur A. Abdullahi; Abdul Kadir Ali; Nur B. Shube; Abdiamar Bare; Suhan Jama; Hassan Farah ; Najima Handule; Ahmed Sirad Abdi; Ali Abdi; Abdullahi Abdivahman; Saleban Ahmed; Abdimahat Ali; Manuel Gallegou; Abdirahman Hassan; Sadiyo Hassan; Nimc Mohamed; Ali Ahmed Muse; Nimo Omar; Abdul Patah; Ashley Taylor ; Sahro Jama; Fardowsa Ali; Ibrahim A. Iman; Ahmed Khalif; Iraq I. Abade; Mohamed F. Jama; Mohamud Mohamed Ahmed; Anab Abdi; Haji Ali Mohamud; Kamal Salah; Fardowsa Anshur; Sahra Nur; Tajir Hersi, Plaintiffs–Appellants/Cross–Appellees, v. JBS USA, LLC, Defendant–Appellee/Cross–Appellant, and Swift Beef Company; Swift & Company, Inc. ; JBS Swift & Company; JBS S.A., Defendants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

819 F.3d 1237

Esmeralda CASTANEDA; Joshua J. Peters; Andrew Ruiz; Angelica Gutierrez; Joann S. Lopez; Mariano Gallegos; Tim Praeuner; Dawn Allmer; Samuel Sanchez; Adan Abdullahi; Amino N. Galal; Istahil Farah Jama; Abdirizak M. Abdi; Muhyadin Au; Mohamed Horor; Habibo A. Elmi; Hibo H. Maalin; Faiuma Jama; Batula Awl; Sadi M. Adan; Abdirizak Ahmed; Ahmed Ali Gelle; Habiba Abdi; Kuresha S. Noor; Mohamed Isse; Mohamed A. Mohamed; Abdi Abdirahman; Mohamed Mohamed; Mohamed Burow; Israd Ibrahim; Abdi Jama; Abdiaziz Osman; Ibrahim O. Hassan; Nur A. Abdullahi; Abdul Kadir Ali; Nur B. Shube; Abdiamar Bare; Suhan Jama; Hassan Farah ; Najima Handule; Ahmed Sirad Abdi; Ali Abdi; Abdullahi Abdivahman; Saleban Ahmed; Abdimahat Ali; Manuel Gallegou; Abdirahman Hassan; Sadiyo Hassan; Nimc Mohamed; Ali Ahmed Muse; Nimo Omar; Abdul Patah; Ashley Taylor ; Sahro Jama; Fardowsa Ali; Ibrahim A. Iman; Ahmed Khalif; Iraq I. Abade; Mohamed F. Jama; Mohamud Mohamed Ahmed; Anab Abdi; Haji Ali Mohamud; Kamal Salah; Fardowsa Anshur; Sahra Nur; Tajir Hersi, Plaintiffs–Appellants/Cross–Appellees,
v.
JBS USA, LLC, Defendant–Appellee/Cross–Appellant,
and
Swift Beef Company; Swift & Company, Inc. ; JBS Swift & Company; JBS S.A., Defendants.

Nos. 14–1217
14–1221.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

March 31, 2016.
As Amended on Denial of Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc May 3, 2016.


819 F.3d 1241

Robert L. Wiggins, Jr., Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb, Birmingham, AL (Robert J. Camp, Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb), Birmingham, AL, Diane Vaksdal Smith, Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine, P.C., Englewood, CO, and Joseph D. Lane, The Cochran Law Firm, P.C., Dothan, AL, with him on the briefs for Plaintiffs–Appellants/Cross–Appellees.

W.V. Bernie Siebert, Sherman & Howard, L.L.C., Denver, CO (Kelly K. Robinson, Sherman & Howard, L.L.C., Denver, CO and Lori M. Phillips, Sherman & Howard, L.L.C., Atlanta, GA, with him on the briefs), for Defendant–Appellee/Cross–Appellant.

Before KELLY, HARTZ, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.

HARTZ, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs are current and former hourly employees in the slaughter and fabrication operations of a beef-processing plant in Greeley, Colorado, now owned by JBS USA, LLC (JBS). Employees on the slaughter line kill the cattle and disassemble them into sides of beef; employees on the fabrication line cut the sides into various beef products. Plaintiffs have been paid under the terms of collective-bargaining agreements negotiated between the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (the Union) and JBS. (For convenience we will refer to both JBS and its predecessors as JBS.)

Plaintiffs filed suit against JBS in October 2010, claiming that they did not receive compensation required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The disputes concern when the work day begins, when it ends, and what, if any, compensation is due when the production lines halt for a 30–minute meal break. After a bench trial the United States District Court for the District of Colorado found that Plaintiffs had failed to carry their burden of proof and entered judgment in favor of JBS. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. The court could properly find that compensation for Plaintiffs' activities complied with the FLSA.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Introduction to the Legal Framework

The FLSA typically requires an employer to compensate employees for all the time that the employee spends working on the employer's behalf. See Smith v. Aztec Well Servicing Co., 462 F.3d 1274, 1285 (10th Cir.2006). The FLSA does not define work, see Smith, 462 F.3d at 1285, but the Supreme Court has defined the

819 F.3d 1242

term in the FLSA as "physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business," Tenn. Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local N. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 598, 64 S.Ct. 698, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944) (emphasis added).

One issue that has been the source of many disputes is when the work day begins and ends. A partial solution is provided by § 4(a) of the Portal–to–Portal Act of 1947, under which commute time and walking to and from the employee's work station is ordinarily noncompensable. It provides that the term work does not include either (1) walking or travel time to and from the employee's "actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which [the] employee is employed to perform" or (2) "activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities." 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). The Act leaves open to dispute, however, what is encompassed by the term principal activity. The Supreme Court has explained that "activities performed either before or after the regular work shift, on or off the production line, are compensable ... if those activities are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which covered workmen are employed and are not specifically excluded by Section 4(a)(1)." Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247, 256, 76 S.Ct. 330, 100 L.Ed. 267 (1956) (time that battery-plant employees exposed to toxic chemicals spent changing clothes and showering pre- and post-shift was compensable). In other words, "any activity that is integral and indispensable to a principal activity is itself a principal activity." IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21, 37, 126 S.Ct. 514, 163 L.Ed.2d 288 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).

To avoid some of the remaining points of controversy, Congress has left a few matters to collective bargaining. After a Department of Labor interpretive bulletin said that changing clothes, at least in some circumstances, could be an integral part of a worker's principal activity (and therefore compensable, as confirmed in Steiner, 350 U.S. at 256, 76 S.Ct. 330 ), Congress enacted 29 U.S.C. § 203(o ). See Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp., ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 870, 875–76, 187 L.Ed.2d 729 (2014). Under that statute a collective-bargaining agreement can provide that changing clothes and washing at the beginning and end of the work day are not compensable. The parties have disputed what activities (such as donning (and doffing) protective gear and picking up (and disposing of) equipment) can be encompassed by this exclusion from compensation. And they have also disputed whether workers must be compensated for their walk time between the locker rooms (where they don and doff clothing) and the production lines. We will discuss the applicable law in greater detail below.

Another ground for ignoring some activities at the beginning and end of the work day is the de minimis doctrine, which originated in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 692, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946). "When the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours, such trifles may be disregarded. Split-second absurdities are not justified by the actualities of working conditions or by the policy of the [FLSA]." Id. The de minimis doctrine has been codified (and limited, see Sandifer, 134 S.Ct. at 880 n. 8 ) by the Department of Labor, which has promulgated a rule stating that "insubstantial or insignificant periods of time beyond the scheduled working hours, which cannot as a practical administrative matter be precisely recorded for

819 F.3d 1243

payroll purposes, may be disregarded," 29 C.F.R. § 785.47, although "[a]n employer may not arbitrarily fail to count as hours worked any part, however small, of the employee's fixed or regular working time or practically ascertainable period of time he is regularly required to spend on duties assigned to him." Id.; see Reich v. Monfort, 144 F.3d 1329, 1333–34 (10th Cir.1998) (adopting three-factor test to determine whether time is de minimis: "(1) the practical administrative difficulty of recording the additional time; (2) the size of the claim in the aggregate; and (3) whether the claimants performed the work on a regular basis"); id. at 1333 ("There is no precise amount of time that may be denied compensation as de minimis.").

Once the work day starts, all activity is ordinarily compensable until the work day ends. Under the continuous-workday rule promulgated by the Secretary of Labor: "[T]o the extent that activities engaged in by an employee occur after the employee commences to perform the first principal activity on a particular workday and before he ceases the performance of the last principal activity on a particular workday, the provisions of [§ 4 of the Portal–to–Portal Act] have no application." 29 C.F.R. § 790.6(a) ; see Alvarez, 546 U.S. at 28, 126 S.Ct. 514. That is, an activity (such as walking to or from a work station) that occurs between the first and last principal activities of the day is compensable even if that same activity would be excluded from compensable time under the Portal–to–Portal Act had it occurred before the first or after the last principal activity of the day. See Alvarez, 546 U.S. at 37, 126 S.Ct. 514.

One exception to the continuous-workday rule is at issue in this litigation. The employer does not need to compensate employees for a bona fide meal break, which is ordinarily...

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