Employees who are required to report to work but cannot start their duties must be compensated for the waiting period, a divided appeals court ruled Tuesday, reviving a wage-and-hour suit filed by a Lidl worker.

Court Finds Waiting Time Integral to Principal Activity

The collective-action case, Santos v. Lidl, alleged that grocery staff had to arrive 15 minutes before their shift began, only to find the store still locked because managers had not yet arrived. Workers were therefore unable to clock in and earn wages for the time they spent waiting.

The appeals panel overturned a lower-court dismissal that had labeled the waiting period a non-compensable “preliminary activity” under the Portal-to-Portal Act amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. The panel cited a regulatory example distinguishing voluntary early arrival from employer-mandated waiting.

In the regulation, waiting that occurs because an employee is required to be at a specific location and is ready to work is deemed part of the employee’s principal activities. When duties cannot be performed due to circumstances beyond his control, that time remains compensable. By contrast, voluntary early arrival without an employer directive remains non-compensable.

For the workers at Lidl, the court concluded that the inability to unlock the doors was a circumstance beyond their control, making the waiting time an integral part of their principal activity and therefore compensable.

In practice, this means employees who show up on time as instructed and are ready to work must be paid for any delay that prevents them from performing their tasks, even if the delay is caused by managerial lateness.

Department Guidance Highlights Fact-Specific Nature

Its guidance notes that a messenger solving a crossword while awaiting assignments is “engaged to wait,” as is a factory worker chatting while equipment is repaired.

Conversely, the agency describes a truck driver who departs early, arrives at the destination, and is completely relieved of duty until a later time as “waiting to be engaged,” which does not count as work time.

These examples highlight the case-by-case analysis required to determine compensation eligibility, a point the appeals court emphasized by referencing the regulatory distinction.