A group of 122 detention officers at a New Mexico county prison brought a lawsuit against their employer (the prison’s management company) for not paying them for time spent in pre-shift and post-shift activities. When officers arrive at the prison, they first undergo a security screening and then participate in at least one pre-shift briefing, retrieve keys and equipment (radio, handcuffs, pepper spray), and walk to their post within the prison complex. After finishing their shifts, officers brief those taking over their shifts, walk back from their post within the complex, and return their keys and equipment to the prison’s inventory control system.

Officers are not permitted to clock in until after they undergo the security screening and they clock out after returning their keys and equipment. But regardless of when they clock in or out, officers were paid based on their scheduled eight-hour shift and not based on the time clock entries. In other words, officers were not being paid for any time they spend in the security screenings, pre-/post-shift briefings, retrieving/returning keys and equipment, and walking to/from their posts.

In deciding whether these pre-shift and post-shift activities were compensable, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals considered whether those activities were “integral and indispensable” to their principal activities on the job. This question is tied to, and revolves around, “the productive work that the employee is employed to perform.” The officers’ principal activities included maintaining the custody and discipline of inmates, supervising detainees, searching for contraband, and providing prison security.

The Tenth Circuit concluded that the officers should be paid for all of the pre- and post-shift activities they identified. The pre-shift security screenings were required to ensure the overall safety of the prison and prevent officers from bringing contraband like weapons or cell phones into the prison. In this way, they shared the same purpose as the officers’ general work: maintaining a secure prison environment (which the Court distinguished from security screenings aimed generally at preventing theft or keeping employees safe). Because the time officers spend undergoing the pre-shift security screening was “integral and indispensable” to their principal job duties, that activity begins their workday. They must be paid for that time and for any other activity that comes after it, which includes all of the other pre-shift tasks they identified.

After their shift, the officers’ last stop is to return keys and equipment. As it relates to their principal job duties, officers use keys to guard the inmates and lock/unlock doors to ensure prison security, use radios to communicate with other officers throughout the day, and use handcuffs and pepper spray both as a deterrent and, if necessary, to control unruly inmates. It is clear that the keys and equipment were “intrinsic elements” necessary for the officers to perform their duties of providing security in the prison and maintaining custody and discipline of inmates. Because returning the keys and equipment was the officers’ last stop at the end of their workday, all of the other post-shift activities that come before it are also compensable.

These activities were compensable despite the fact that the employer argued it did not know the officers were engaging in them because they did not fill out time adjustment forms. But the prison actually required officers to participate in the security screening and briefings, and the Court said that the prison could not simultaneously require an activity and also claim to be unaware that the officers were engaging in that activity.

You can read the full case here.

By Rebecca D. Bullard, rbulllard@dsda.com