Security screen time. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled July 21 that workers must be paid for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings, PennLive.com reported [1]. The issue arose in a lawsuit brought by workers, including contingent workers, at an Amazon.com warehouse in the state where workers must wait to undergo security screenings at the end of their shifts.
The decision [2] in Pennsylvania comes even after another lawsuit [3] in 2014 when the US Supreme Court had ruled that employees do not have to be paid while waiting for security screenings. However, the Pennsylvania court’s ruling related to whether mandatory security screening is compensable as “hours worked” within the meaning of the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act. The 2014 US Supreme Court case involved the Federal Labor Standards Act.
California pay suits: willfulness matters. A court in the Northern District of California ruled employees seeking statutory damages under California Labor law must show more than just an inaccurate wage statement or inaccurate final wages; they must show a willful non-compliance with the law, according to an article [4] from attorneys at Seyfarth Shawn LLP.
Lime settles IC misclassification case for $8.5 million. Scooter rental company Lime agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims it misclassified “juicers” as independent contractors, according to court filings. Juicers collect scooters from the streets and recharge them overnight. The class-action suit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court under California’s Private Attorney General Act. Lime has an arbitration clause in its juicer agreement, but the clause does not apply to claims brought under PAGA, according to the settlement. In the settlement, Lime denied all allegations that it failed to comply with the law. Read more from SIA’s Global Daily News [5].