Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WAGE-HOUR—WORKING TIME—E.D. Pa.: PMWA requires compensation to employees for time spent walking between warehouse entrance and assigned workspaces, (Feb 21, 2025)

By Robert Margolis, J.D.

The court applied recent a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision interpreting the state statute, noting that the Pennsylvania statute differs from federal law on the issue of walking time.

The Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) requires that hourly workers be compensated for time spent walking from the entrance of a Target Corporation warehouse in which the workers are employed to their assigned workstations within the warehouse, a federal district court in Pennsylvania has held. While noting that “[f]ederal law has long barred claims for walking time,” the court relied on the more expansive definition of compensable “hours worked” in the PMWA that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently interpreted to include time that the employee is required to be on the premises of the employer. The court granted a motion for partial summary judgment by a Target employee in a wage-and-hour class action brought on behalf of warehouse employees at a Target warehouse in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and denied Target’s cross-motion. The motion sought, and the court granted, summary judgment on liability only, with a damages trial to follow (Davis v. Target Corp., No. 2:23-cv-00089-JFM (E.D. Pa. Feb. 19, 2025)).

Walking time. The employee sued on behalf of a class of employees who worked at a 1.3 million square foot distribution facility at any time between November 29, 2019, and December 1, 2023. All employees enter and exit the warehouse at the same location, swiping their security badges near the entrance, and from there entering the warehouse floor from which they must walk to their assigned home department for “start-up” meetings at the beginning of each shift. Time clocks for clocking in and out are located near the home departments.

For safety reasons, the employees must follow a designated walking path to get to and from the home departments. The employee testified that it took him between five and seven minutes to walk between the warehouse entrance and the time clock at his assigned home department. At the end of the shift, employees are expected to clock out near their assigned home department and walk back along the designated path to the warehouse floor entrance. The employer does not pay class members for any time spent in the warehouse either before shift start or after clock out, including during the time spent walking to and from the entrance.

Heimbach.The employee argued that the case was controlled by a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision, Heimbach v. Amazon.com, Inc., 255 A.3d 191 (Pa. 2021). The PMWA requires employers to pay employees for all “hours worked.” A supporting regulation defines “hours worked” to include “time during which an employee is required by the employer to be on the premises of the employer, to be on duty or be at the prescribed work place, time spent in traveling as part of the duties of the employee during normal working hours and time during which an employee is employed or permitted to work.”

In Heimbach, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court interpreted the definition of “hours worked” in the PMWA, and its supporting regulation, to require that Amazon pay its employees for time spent waiting for and undergoing security screening at the end of their shifts. It reasoned that the above-described definition of “hours worked” includes “four separate categories of an employee’s time”: (1) “time during which an employee is required by the employer to be on the premises of the employer”; (2) “[time during which an employee is required by the employer] to be on duty or be at the prescribed work place”; (3) “time spent in traveling as part of the duties of the employee during normal working hours”; and (4) “time during which an employee is employed or permitted to work.” All time performing any one of those four types of activities is to be considered “hours worked.” Since Amazon requires employees to be on the premises waiting for and during security screenings, that time fell within the definition of “hours worked.”

Expansive language. In this case, the federal district court agreed with the employee that Heimbach’s “expansive” language rendered it controlling over the employee’s claims. It noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court could have confined its holding to the specific question asked and fact situation in that case but did not. Heimbachwas controlling because it concerned, like this case in the words of the federal district court, “time that warehouse workers spend on a ubiquitous activity that occurs after (and here, before) their primary job-related tasks.” Employees are required to walk to and from their home departments on the designated walking paths, which are on the employer’s premises. Without walking along the designated paths to their home departments, employees could not do their job. For these reasons, the time spent doing so falls within the four categories of “hours worked” as Heimbachdirects.

The court rejected several of the employer’s arguments. It did not consider the analysis of “hours worked” in Heimbachto be dicta, because it examined that issue to answer the question before it in that case.

Nor did the court agree with the employer that the text of the regulation defining “hours worked,” as applied to the facts of the case, is unconstitutionally vague. First, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court already has interpreted the definition, and the federal court would not disregard that interpretation. Second, the court found none of the phrases that the employer claimed were vague—“required by the employer,” “on the premises of the employer,” and “convenience of the employer”—to in fact be unconstitutionally vague. The fact that the employer could come up with activities to which it is unclear whether those phrases applied was not pertinent. The question is whether the terms are vague as applied to the activity at issue in the case: walking time.

The employer also argued that employees may spend time as they please before and after their scheduled shifts, including time spent dropping belongings off in breakrooms or using restrooms. But the employee did not seek compensation for time spent doing activities other than walking between the entrance and home departments. Further, any dispute about the time employees spend doing activities other than walking, if relevant at all, would impact damages rather than liability.

The case is No. 2:23-cv-00089-JFM.

Judge: Murphy, J.

Attorneys: Deirdre Aaron (Winebrake & Santillo) for Timothy Davis. Jacqueline R. Barrett (Ogletree Deakins) for Target Corporation.

Companies: Target Corporation

Cases: WageHour WorkingTime ClassActions StateLawClaims PennsylvaniaNews