Amazon prevails in Supreme Court case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that an Amazon contractor does not have to pay warehouse workers for their time spent standing in security screening lines following their shifts. 

The court found that standing in the screening line was not a principal activity nor was it “integral or indispensable” to the job — two key factors in determining whether activities after the workday should be compensated. 

{mosads}”The screenings were not an intrinsic element of retrieving products from warehouse shelves or packaging them for shipment,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the opinion. “And Integrity Staffing could have eliminated the screenings altogether without impairing the employees’ ability to complete their work.”

While the decision was unanimous, justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote a concurring opinion. 

The Amazon contractor, Integrity Staffing, required its employees to stand in line to undergo screening after work to ensure that the employees were not stealing anything from the warehouse. 

Two Nevada employees who waited in line for up to 25 minutes a day sued and won at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Thomas said the appeals court “erred by focusing on whether an employer required a particular activity.” He called that test “overbroad.”

Business groups including the Chamber of Commerce backed Amazon in the dispute, as did the labor-friendly Obama administration. The case had implications for many other companies. Amazon, Apple, CVS and others have been named in similar lawsuits around the country.