Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC, 2024 WL 3352712 (9th Cir. July 10, 2024)

Customer Connexx LLC operates a call center for an appliance recycling business, and plaintiffs Cariene Cadena and Andrew Gonzales worked as call center agents for the company.  As part of their jobs, agents had to use an electronic timekeeping software to track when they clocked in and out.  To clock in and out, plaintiffs had to have a functioning computer, but at the call center plaintiffs allegedly would often have to boot up and shut down the computers during the workday.  Cadena and Gonzales filed a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), alleging that “Connexx owed its call center workers unpaid overtime wages under the FLSA for booting up and booting down their computers before and after clocking into the company’s timekeeping software program each shift.” 

Previously, in Cadena v. Customer Connexx LLC, 51 F.4th 831 (9th Cir. 2022), the Ninth Circuit concluded that time spent booting up computers is compensable under the FLSA because it is an “integral and indispensable” part of call center agents’ duties, but remanded the case to determine whether the time spent booting up and shutting the down the computers was “de minimis,” which would mean Connexx did not have to pay overtime for this work.  A district court then granted summary judgment to Connexx, concluding that the time spent on booting up and shutting down computers was de minimis.  Plaintiffs appealed this decision, and the case ended up back in the Ninth Circuit.  In this latest opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the de minimis doctrine remains good law, but stated that granting summary judgment for Connexx at this stage was inappropriate, as “when the summary judgment record is viewed in the light most favorable to [plaintiffs], the regularity of the work and the lack of practical difficulty in recording the time favor a conclusion that the time at issue is not de minimis.”  The Ninth Circuit then remanded the case back to the district court level, stating a trial would be necessary to resolve the disputed fact issues.