Arnold v. Schreiber Foods, Inc.

690 F.Supp.2d 672

John ARNOLD, Sid Edwards, Carlon Finley, and Robert Underwood, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. SCHREIBER FOODS, INC., Defendant.

Case No. 3:09-cv-00744.

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

February 1, 2010.

David W. Garrison, Gerald E. Martin, Barrett, Johnston & Parsley, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiffs.

Kenneth A. Weber, Emily H. Plotkin, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, Nashville, TN, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, District Judge.

Pending before the court is the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by defendant Schreiber Foods, Inc. (Docket No. 33), the plaintiffs' response (Docket No. 42), and the defendant's reply (Docket No. 48). For the reasons discussed below, the defendant's motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

FACTS

Schreiber Foods, Inc. ("Schreiber") operates a dairy processing plant in Antioch, Tennessee.¹ The plaintiffs are former plant employees who claim that Schreiber failed to pay them for time related to donning and doffing their uniforms.²

Because it is important for Schreiber to maintain a sanitary facility, the company requires employees to wear clean uniforms. Schreiber issues each employee 14 uniforms and, if the employee works in a cold area of the plant, a clean jacket. The uniforms consist of "uniform-style pants" and shirts "with industrial snaps that can quickly be stripped off in case of an emergency." (Docket No. 42 at 15.) Schreiber cleans and maintains the uniforms, and employees are forbidden from removing the uniforms from the premises.

The defendant's plant has men's and women's locker rooms, where each employee has a "personal locker" and a "clean uniform locker." The personal locker contains the employee's steel-toe safety boots, hard hat (or "bump cap"), safety glasses, and personal items, as well as the key to the employee's clean uniform locker. The clean uniform locker contains, as the name suggests, the employee's clean uniforms. This dual-locker setup enables Schreiber's cleaning service to deliver clean uniforms without accessing the employees' personal lockers.

Schreiber pays its hourly employees based on when they clock in and out of the plant's time clocks.³ Time before clock-in and after clock-out is not compensated. Before clocking in, employees enter the plant and go to the locker room to don a clean uniform. While in the locker room, employees also don their boots, hard hat, and safety glasses. The plaintiffs claim that employees are required to wash their hands before leaving the locker room.

Upon exiting the locker room, employees enter a hallway that leads to the plant's production area. In the hallway, employees retrieve hairnets, beard nets, and earplugs from dispensers located across from the locker rooms. Then, employees clock in at a time clock located next to the entrance to the production area. Before entering the production area, employees must clean their boots by stepping in a sanitizing solution. The plaintiffs claim that they do this by stepping in a foot bath before leaving the locker room; the defendant claims that employees sanitize their boots by stepping on a solution-infused mat located next to the time clock.

The employees essentially perform this process in reverse when their shift is over. They clock out and walk to the locker room, where they place their hair and beard nets, earplugs, and uniforms in designated bins. Employees store their boots, hard hats, and safety glasses in their personal lockers and change into their street clothes. The plaintiffs claim that, before storing their boots, employees are required to spray them with a sanitizing spray located in the locker room. In contrast, plant manager William Merrick states in his declaration that sanitizing spray is available throughout the plant and that employees are not required to use it.

Employees receive two 15-minute paid breaks during the workday. The defendant offers a 30-minute unpaid lunch period, but if employees choose to take it, they are required to stay 30 minutes longer at the end of the day. Fewer than ten employees have taken unpaid breaks in the past five years, and "it is common practice at the plant to go months without a single hourly employee who works in the plant taking an unpaid break." (Docket No. 36 ¶ 29.) If employees leave the premises during lunch, they are required to doff their clean uniforms and re-don them before resuming work. The parties dispute whether employees are allowed to wear their uniforms while retrieving items from their cars.

The defendant's plant is unionized, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union ("UFCW") is the exclusive bargaining agent for all hourly employees. In September 2004, Schreiber and the UFCW negotiated a new collective-bargaining agreement. One of the UFCW's proposals was for Schreiber to compensate employees for time spent donning and doffing uniforms at the beginning and end of the workday. After further negotiation, this proposal was withdrawn, and it was not included in the final agreement. The same thing happened when the two sides negotiated a new agreement in 2008.

ANALYSIS

The plaintiffs have filed a putative collective action, alleging that the defendant violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., by failing to pay them for compensable work performed before clocking in and after clocking out. The defendant has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56.

I. Summary Judgment Standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) requires the court to grant a motion for summary judgment if "the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." If a moving defendant shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to at least one essential element of the plaintiff's claim, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to provide evidence beyond the pleadings "setting forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Moldowan v. City of Warren, 578 F.3d 351, 374 (6th Cir.2009); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). "In evaluating the evidence, the court must draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Moldowan, 578 F.3d at 374.

"`The judge's function is not ... to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter, but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.'" Id. (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). But "the mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the plaintiff's position will be insufficient," and the plaintiff's proof must be more than "merely colorable." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505. An issue of fact is "genuine" only if a reasonable jury could find for the plaintiff. Moldowan, 578 F.3d at 374 (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986)).

II. Relevant Statutory Framework

In 1938, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") to ensure a "minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers." 29 U.S.C. § 202(a). The statute provides that employers must pay time-and-a-half overtime compensation to covered employees who work more than 40 hours in a workweek. Id. § 207(a).

This requires courts to determine (1) what counts as "work" and (2) how to calculate the number of hours worked. The Supreme Court initially took a broad view of these questions. See IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U.S. 21, 25, 126 S.Ct. 514, 163 L.Ed.2d 288 (2005) (citing Tenn. Coal, Iron & R.R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 64 S.Ct. 698, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944); Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 65 S.Ct. 165, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944); Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946)). In response, Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act, which narrowed the coverage of the FLSA, in 1947. Specifically, the act provides that an employee's "preliminary" and "postliminary" activities are non-compensable:

Activities not compensable.... No employer shall be liable on account of the failure of such employer to pay an employee minimum wages, or to pay an employee overtime compensation, for... ___

(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform, and (2) activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities,

which occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity or activities.

29 U.S.C. § 254(a).

Since 1947, the Department of Labor has applied the "continuous workday rule," "which means that the `workday' is generally defined as `the period between the commencement and completion on the same workday of an employee's principal activity or activities.'" IBP, 546 U.S. at 29, 126 S.Ct. 514 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 790.6(a) (2005)). Activities that take place between the first and last principal activities of the day are thus generally compensable, because they occur during the workday. Id. at 28-29, 37, 40, 126 S.Ct. 514. The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted "principal activity or activities" to include "`all activities which are an integral and indispensable part of the principal activities.'" Id. at 29-30, 126 S.Ct. 514 (quoting Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247, 252-53, 76 S.Ct. 330, 100 L.Ed. 267 (1956)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In 1949, Congress further narrowed the scope of the FLSA by adding § 203(...