Martinez v. Amazon.Com Services LLC

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Biran, J.
• Citation: Martinez v. Amazon.Com Services LLC, 491 Md. 38, 338 A.3d 636 (Md. 2025)
• Docket Number: Misc. No. 17
• Decision Date: 03 July 2025
• Parties: Estefany MARTINEZ v. AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC

338 A.3d 636

491 Md. 38

Estefany MARTINEZ

v.AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC

Misc. No. 17, Sept. Term, 2024

Supreme Court of Maryland.

July 3, 2025

United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Case No.: 22-00502-BAH, Brendan A. Hurson, Judge.

Argued by Brian J. Markovitz (Michal Shinnar of Joseph Greenwald and Laake P.A., Greenbelt, MD; Peter Winebrake and Andrew Santillo of Winebrake & Santillo, LLC, Dresher, PA), on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by Jason C. Schwartz (Lucas C. Townsend, George J. Hazel, Clare F. Steinberg, Joshua R. Zuckerman, and John N. Reed of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Washington, D.C.; Derek M. Stikeleather and Sean L. Gugerty of Goodell, DeVries, Leech & Dann, LLP, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Amici Curiae The Public Justice Center, The National Employment Law Project, and The Baltimore Action Legal Team: Sahar Atassi, Esquire, Murnaghan Appellate Advocacy Fellow, Public Justice Center, 201 N. Charles Street, Suite 1200, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Amici Curiae Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association (“MWELA”) and National Employment Lawyers Association (“NELA”): Suzanna Bobadilla, Esquire, Bethel Habte, pro hac vice, Jessica Westerman, pro hac vice, Carolyn L. Wheeler, pro hac vice, Katz Banks Kumin LLP, 11 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, Jessica Westerman, pro hac vice, Katz Banks Kumin LLP, 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 665, Washington, DC 20036.

Amicus Curiae Maryland Defense Counsel, Inc: Jeffrey T. Johnson, Esquire, Kraig B. Long, Esquire, Samuel E. Amon, Esquire, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP, 100 S. Charles Street, Suite 1600, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, Killough, JJ.

Biran, J.

By statute, this Court is authorized to “answer a question of law certified to it by a court of the United States or by an appellate court of another state or of a tribe, if the answer may be determinative of an issue in pending litigation in the certifying court and there is no controlling appellate decision, constitutional provision, or statute of this State.” Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. (“CJP”) § 12-603 (1974, 2020 Repl. Vol., 2024 Supp.). The United States District Court for the District of Maryland has certified the following question to this Court:

Does the doctrine of de minimis non curat lex, as described in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 [, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515] (1946) and Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp., 571 U.S. 220 [, 134 S.Ct. 870, 187 L.Ed.2d 729] (2014), apply to claims brought under the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law and the Maryland Wage and Hour Law?

The phrase “de minimis non curat lex” - often referred to as the “de minimis doctrine” or the “de minimis rule” - is an “age-old maxim” that has been translated as “the law doth not regard trifles.”¹ As we explain below, the de minimis doctrine applies to claims brought under the Maryland Wage Payment Collection Law and the Maryland Wage and Hour Law.

I Background

[1] Under CJP § 12-605(a), “[t]he court certifying a question of law” to this Court “shall issue a certification order[.]” The certification order must contain “[t]he facts relevant to the question, showing fully the nature of the controversy out of which the question arose[.]” Id. § 12-606(a)(2). This Court accepts the facts provided by the certifying court. See, e.g., Price v. Murdy, 462 Md. 145, 147, 198 A.3d 798 (2018). Thus, we adopt the following facts set forth in the certification order of the district court:

Plaintiff Estefany Martinez is a former Amazon.com Services LLC (“Amazon”) employee who worked as a Fulfillment Associate between June 20, 2017, and November 12, 2021, at the Baltimore Fulfillment Center (“BWI2”). Specifically, Ms. Martinez worked as “packer” on the facility floor, where she sealed boxes and put them on a conveyor belt. Up until April 2020, Ms. Martinez and most other hourly Maryland fulfillment center employees were required to clock out at the end of the day before beginning the required post-shift security screening process.

Lockers and Storage Area

Amazon employees arriving to begin their shift had the option to store their personal belongings in lockers before entering the secured area of the fulfillment floor. Ms. Martinez did not use a locker because she did not “know how to use it.”

Employees had the option to not use the lockers and instead to carry their personal items onto the warehouse floor. Ms. Martinez chose to bring a backpack into the work area. Amazon did not require any personal items for work in the secured area, so no personal items were necessary for work functions.

The Security Screening Process

From November 2018 through April 2020, employees who exited fulfillment centers passed through a security area on their way out of the building. Ms. Martinez’s work location, BWI2, had two exits, an east and west exit. Ms. Martinez usually used the east exit. Security screening at each of BWI2’s exits consisted of metal detectors arranged in a row. Employees clocked out before passing through the security screening areas at BWI2 (and at the two other Amazon facilities at issue in the case), and thus were not compensated for the time spent in the screening areas.

Employees had three options for passing through the metal detectors, depending upon the items on their person. They could travel through: (1) an “express lane,” which employees could use if they chose not to bring any items onto the floor that would trigger the metal detector; (2) a “divestment lane,” where employees could slide items that would trigger the metal detector down a table for visual inspection and then pass through the metal detector; and (3) a “bag scan lane,” where employees could place a bag on a conveyor belt and have it scanned while the employee walked through the metal detector.

A line would form in the bag-check lanes because the x-ray device in that lane had the capacity to process one bin containing one bag at a time. According to Ms. Martinez, there were sometimes approximately 20 people in line ahead of her in the bagcheck lane.

Whether and to what extent a line would form in the divestment lane or the express lane is unclear. Ms. Martinez testified that “even in the express lane, there would be several people lined up.” Geoffrey Gilbert-Differ (Senior Regional Loss Prevention Manager) indicated that he only observed lines accrue in the bag-check lanes with x-ray devices.

Ms. Martinez never used the express lane. She occasionally used the divestment lane when she did not have her bag. According to Ms. Martinez, if someone set off the metal detector, that person would then be subjected to secondary screening with a magnetic wand. Ms. Martinez testified that she triggered the metal detector “about twice” and that someone from security waved a metal detector wand in front of her and behind her for “maybe three” seconds as part of the secondary screening. To cut down on the need for secondary screenings, all employees were instructed not to bring metal into the secured area to the extent possible.

Time Punch Data Comparisons to Exit Swipe Data

There is no way to definitively know how long employees waited in line. However, Amazon did collect two forms of time-related data: “time clock punch data” and “exit swipe data,” which may permit some inferences. “Time clock punch data” reflects the time at which the employee finished their shift and clocked out at a time clock within the secured area. “Exit swipe data” refers to the time at which the employee swiped their badge at a turnstile in order to exit the facility after completing security.

The difference between the punch time and exit swipe does not necessarily capture the time the employee spent waiting in a security line. This is the case because if, on any given day an employee conducted any other activities after punching out at a time clock - such as using the restroom, going to the employee’s locker, visiting a break room, or chatting with another employee, etc. - then the difference between the employee’s clock out time and exit swipe time would not, according to Amazon, provide an accurate measurement of the time the employee spent waiting in a security line. Additionally, even if the employee went straight from security to the exit turnstile, the difference between clock out and exit swipe time would still exceed the time spent passing through security because that difference would also include the employee’s time spent walking to an exit turnstile.

Amazon provided this time clock and exit swipe data to Peter Nickerson, an economist at Nickerson & Associates, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in economic and statistical analysis.² Mr. Nickerson determined that Ms. Martinez worked a total of 68 shifts during the relevant period of time. Mr. Nickerson provided an analysis of 65 of those 68 shifts. For 20 of those shifts (29.4% of shifts), it took three minutes or less after clocking out for Ms. Martinez to exit the facility through the exit turnstile. For 28 of the remaining 48 shifts (41.2% of shifts), she took between three to five minutes from clocking out to reach the exit turnstile. For 11 of the remaining 20 shifts (16.2% of shifts), Ms. Martinez took between five and eight minutes to exit after clocking out. For six shifts (8.8% of shifts), Ms. Martinez took 15 minutes or more to exit after clocking out.

In total, it took Ms. Martinez more than five minutes to exit after clocking out on 20 occasions. During these 20 shifts, a different employee punching out within one minute of Ms. Martinez, and at the same time clock, made it to the exit turnstiles in three minutes or less on at least 214 occasions. Amazon alleges that this “data undercuts any claim by [Ms. Martinez] that there were delays going through security.”

Ms. Martinez’s counsel retained Liesl Fox, a Senior Consultant and Partner at Quantitative Research Associates, to create “a damages...