Call Center Workers Win Third Shot at Boot-Up Time Pay on Appeal

Las Vegas call center workers seeking pay for off-the-clock computer tasks deserve another shot at their claims because there are still important facts in dispute, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

A doctrine for deciding when short periods of extra work are compensable is still good law, but it’s unclear whether the workers spent enough time booting up and shutting down their computers to get paid for those efforts, so granting summary judgment in Customer Connexx LLC’s favor on de minimis grounds was inappropriate, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

The workers must start their ...