Whaley v. Henry Ford Health Sys.

Decision Date24 March 2016
Docket NumberCase Number 15-12101
Citation172 F.Supp.3d 994
Parties Daniel Whaley, Plaintiff, v. Henry Ford Health System, Defendant.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

Amy L. Marino, Neil B. Pioch, Lance C. Young, Sommers Schwartz, P.C., Southfield, MI, Bryan Yaldou, Yaldou Law, Brownstown, MI, David J. Cohen, Daivd J. Cohen, Esq., Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.

Barbara E. Buchanan, Terrence J. Miglio, Varnum LLP, Detroit, MI, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS, DENYING AS MOOT MOTION FOR CONDITIONAL CERTIFICATION AS COLLECTIVE ACTION, AND DISMISSING CASE WITH PREJUDICE
DAVID M. LAWSON
, United States District Judge

The question presented by the defendant's motion to dismiss is whether time spent by certain hospital workers laundering and pressing their own hospital scrubs at home is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.

As described by the complaint, which the Court accepts as true for this motion, the activity is not the “principal activity...which [the plaintiff was] employed to perform,” 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)(1), because it was “preliminary” to his job as a MRI Technologist. Nor can the activity be deemed “integral and indispensable” to the plaintiff's job, as that phrase is interpreted by the applicable precedents. Therefore, the activity as a matter of law is not compensable under the FLSA, and the defendant's motion to dismiss will be granted. The plaintiff's motion for conditional certification of the case as a collective action will be dismissed as moot.

I.

According to the complaint, plaintiff Daniel Whaley has been employed as a full-time MRI Technologist at Henry Ford Hospital since September 2003, working at various campuses over the years, and presently assigned to the hospital's Main Campus in Detroit, Michigan. The plaintiff's work duties include direct contact with patients, visitors, and other employees in the defendant's facilities. He prepares patients for MRI scans, transfers patients from their beds to the MRI table

, sets up monitoring equipment for intensive care unit patients, injects patients with contrast dyes, handles patients' bodily fluids, ensures patient safety, checks patients' vital signs, and monitors them for changes in their overall health and behavior.

Henry Ford Hospital System (HFHS), a not-for-profit corporation with its corporate headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, owns, controls, and manages a network of six hospitals and a network of health centers, medical centers, optometrist's offices, emergency rooms, and pharmacies that employ over 23,000 people in the Metro-Detroit area.

On January 1, 1999, HFHS introduced a mandatory, system-wide personal appearance standards policy. By its terms, the policy was intended to promote “The Henry Ford Experience” for patients at the defendant's facilities by creating a uniform workforce appearance that “reflect[s] an image of competence and professionalism,” helps to ensure “compliance in relation to infection control/safety protocols and other regulatory requirements,” and “engage[s] employees in creating a healthy environment focusing on Patient Care.” The policy is identified in a memorandum designated Policy No. 5.06 and entitled “Personal Appearance Standards.” Section 2.0 of the memorandum states:

This policy applies to all employees, students, volunteers, contractors, vendors, and others during workdays, weekends, and off hours who work at all Henry Ford Health System business units and locations when they are in their role as an employee of the System. Employees who are required to wear a uniform must comply with their approved policy as established by their local business unit/department.

The appearance policy itself is articulated in section 4.0 of the memorandum, which reads:

HFHS employees are expected to maintain proper hygiene and observe standards of appropriate business attire. All HFHS employees shall present themselves well-groomed, and appropriately dressed at all times while on premises. Although the general minimum requirements of this systemwide policy must be adhered to at each business unit, a business unit or department (i.e. patient care areas) can choose to implement more restrictive requirements based on infection control and other regulatory requirements.

The memorandum then provides examples in section 5.0 for several categories of appearance features, such as clothing, hair, nails, scent, and so forth. For clothing, section 5.0 states:

Other examples of the Personal Appearance Standards include:

The memorandum also prescribes a uniform color scheme for certain designated departments. The plaintiff, who worked in the radiology department as a technician, was required to wear a cotton scrub top and scrub bottom in navy blue. It does not appear that the defendant furnished the clothing; rather, the plaintiff bought his own scrubs.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant adopted the new policy for a variety of reasons, including the desire to simplify HFHS's operational activities by providing a single dress and appearance standard; facilitate patient safety and infection control; minimize work days lost to illness; avoid increased costs associated with replacement workers; avoid costs associated with hiring an outside vendor to provide clean and pressed uniforms; and mitigate financial losses for extended hospitalizations or repeated admissions caused by hospital-acquired infections. The policy establishes a link between uniforms and infection control by explaining that adherence to the policy helps employees comply with “infection control/safety protocols” and is intended to “engage employees in creating a healthy environment focusing on Patient Care.”

If employees fail to comply, they are subject to progressive punishment, up to and including termination. The plaintiff contends that strict discipline for appearance and dress code violations suggests that the dress code is an integral and indispensable part of an employee's job.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant did not provide employees with on-site access to laundry equipment, clean or press their scrubs “in-house,” or contract with a vendor to launder and press their clothes. As a result, the plaintiff contends that the only option for the defendant's employees was to spend several “off-the-clock” hours each week—either at home or in a laundromat—properly maintaining their work clothing.

The plaintiff notes that the hospital employees' duties put them in direct contact with a wide variety of infectious pathogens and bodily fluids on a regular basis. If such contact occurs, the plaintiff notes, pathogens can not only contaminate and survive on the cotton scrubs, but if left untreated, they can multiply rapidly and transmit infection from the contaminated clothing to patients, visitors, co-workers, and other surfaces in the facility. The plaintiff contends that the failure adequately to control infection pathways in a healthcare setting creates both direct risks—such as the transmission of infectious pathogens to previously-uninfected individuals—and indirect risks—such as reduced productivity due to employee absence, staff, and scheduling problems, and financial losses resulting from non-payment for extended or repeat hospitalizations.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant could not possibly provide adequate patient care, ensure the safety of its patients and employees, or avoid the risks and problems identified above without maintaining a policy that required its employees to show up for work in clean, hygienic, stain-free, ironed, and wrinkle-free scrubs. Therefore, the plaintiff argues, the time that employees spend to maintain their work clothes in a clean, hygienic, stain-free, ironed, and wrinkle-free condition is a necessary, inherent, and integral part of their jobs. Moreover, the plaintiff contends that the policy suggests a strong link between clean scrubs and the defendant's revenues and profitability.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant knew that its employees spent “off-the-clock” time maintaining their work clothing because it promulgated the personal appearance standards policy, knew about the patient safety and infection control issues that unclean clothes could cause, did not provide its employees with laundry or ironing facilities, and trained supervisors and managers to instruct employees to follow the requirements contained in the policy. Despite this knowledge, the plaintiff alleges, the defendant did not provide its employees with on-site access to laundry equipment, did not implement sufficient procedures to ensure that employees documented the time they spent complying with the policy, and did not compensate employees for the “off-the-clock” time they spent ironing and laundering their scrubs.

During the relevant period, the plaintiff earned a straight-time rate of approximately $26.49 per hour and an overtime premium rate of about $39.74 per hour. However, the plaintiff alleges that he has never been paid any wages for the time he spent cleaning or ironing his work clothes to comply with the defendant's personal appearance standards policy. On average, the plaintiff alleges, he spent three overtime hours per week performing “off-the-clock” clothing maintenance activities, which amounts to about $119.22 per week. In that time, the plaintiff apparently includes about two hours per week waiting for the washer and dryer cycles to finish, and another hour ironing.

The plaintiff filed his two-count complaint under the FLSA and Michigan's Workforce Opportunity Wage Act (WOWA). He alleges that the defendant's employees have been regularly deprived of wages owed for the “off-the-clock” time they spent maintaining their hospital scrubs in clean, hygienic, stain-free, ironed, and wrinkle-free condition. On the same date, the plaintiff filed a motion for conditional certification of the case as a collective action under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b)

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