By Anthony Sbardellati, Esq.
In Walters v. Professional Labor Group LLC, 120 F. Fourth 546 (Seventh Cir. 2024), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that employers are required to compensate their employees for time spent traveling between their homes and the location of their travel assignments when (1) the employees will remain at the remote location overnight and (2) the travel occurs during the employees’ “workday.” In addition to being compensable, the court held that the hours spent traveling count toward weekly overtime.
The Walters decision clarified that the “normal rule” found in 29 CFR §785.35 that employers rely on to avoid paying their employees for the time spent commuting to and from work does not apply when employees travel to a remote location where they will remain overnight for a number of days or weeks. Instead, employers placing employees on travel assignments are required to compensate them for the time spent traveling between their homes and their remote work locations—assuming that travel occurs during the employees’ “workday”—in accordance with 29 CFR §785.39, which provides
Travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home. Travel away from home is clearly worktime when it cuts across the employee’s workday. The employee is simply substituting travel for other duties. The time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours but also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days.
To illustrate the implications of this rule, the Walters court provided the following example, which is also found in the applicable regulation: “If an employee regularly works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday the travel time during these hours is [compensable] worktime on Saturday and Sunday as well as on the other days.”
The practical implications of the Walters decision are not entirely clear, because the court declined to explain what constitutes an employee’s “workday,” including in the context of employees whose “workday” differs from assignment to assignment or even within the same assignment. However, the court rejected numerous arguments made by the defendant staffing company, including (1) that compensation is not required because overnight commuting to remote client sites for an extended assignment lasting days or weeks is the norm in the industry; (2) travel could not possibly cut across the employees’ workdays because they do not begin working until they arrive at the client’s job site; (3) employers are only obligated to pay for travel time when the travel actually substitutes for the performance of other work duties; and (4) travel did not occur during the employees’ workday because their work and/or employment commenced at the time they reported to the client site for work.
Although this decision is technically only binding in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin (the states that encompass the Seventh Circuit), the decision is well reasoned, directly supported by the applicable federal regulations, and may be adopted nationwide. In other words, the implications of the Walters ruling on staffing companies that place employees on assignments away from home are significant and potentially far-reaching.
In light of this decision, the safest course for staffing companies that place employees on travel assignments in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin is to pay those employees at least the applicable minimum wage for the time it takes them to travel between their homes and their assignment locations, door to door, both to and from their assignments. Because the Walters decision is well reasoned and directly supported by the text of the applicable regulation, the most conservative approach to avoid litigation risk is to adopt such a policy nationwide.
Anthony Sbardellati is a litigation partner at Akerman LLP.
The post Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Holds That Time Spent Traveling to and From Assignment Locations May Be Compensable appeared first on American Staffing Association.