Is an employer obligated to pay employees for the time spent booting up and signing into their computers prior to clocking in? On October 24, 2022, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals became only the second federal appellate court to address this question. In Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC, 51 F.4th 831 (9th Cir. 2022), the court held that the time spent by call center employees booting up their computers was compensable under the FLSA as an integral and indispensable part of their principal job duties.
The manner in which employees performed their work (answering customer service calls) was central to the court's holding. Specifically, the court noted that the employees worked in-person at a physical call center, that the only method of answering...
