Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors
Answering the Ninth Circuit, a unanimous Supreme Court holds that time awaiting a mandatory exit inspection is “hours worked,” that gate-to-lot travel is compensable only if the gate is the first location required for a reason beyond worksite access, and that an “unpaid” collectively bargained meal period must be paid when employees are confined in a way that forecloses feasible personal activities.
Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors (2024) 15 Cal.5th 908
Wage & Hour
Hours worked · Wage Order 16
Lab. Code §§ 512, 1194
In brief. A solar-project electrician waited in line each day — unpaid — while guards scanned badges and inspected vehicles at a security gate miles from the parking lots, then drove the access road under strict site rules, and ate lunch confined to a designated area under a collective bargaining agreement designating meal periods “unpaid.” The Supreme Court answered the Ninth Circuit’s three certified questions: the exit procedure is compensable “hours worked” under Wage Order No. 16; the drive is compensable, if at all, as “employer-mandated travel” — only where the gate is the first location required for an employment-related reason beyond accessing the site — and not as “hours worked”; and a CBA cannot strip minimum-wage pay from a meal period during which the employer’s confinement “prevents the employee from engaging in otherwise feasible personal activities.” (Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors (2024) 15 Cal.5th 908, 915–916.)
By Jonathan J. Delshad
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
Facts
Wage Order No. 16 governs on-site occupations in construction, drilling, logging, and mining, and requires minimum-wage compensation for all “hours worked” — “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer,” including “all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 11160, subds. 2(J), 4(B); Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, supra, 15 Cal.5th at pp. 915, 918.) The two clauses are “independent factors, each of which defines whether certain time spent is compensable.” (Id. at p. 918, quoting Frlekin v. Apple Inc. (2020) 8 Cal.5th 1038, 1046.) Wage Order No. 16 also contains a provision unique among the wage orders: “[a]ll employer-mandated travel that occurs after the first location where the employee’s presence is required by the employer shall be compensated.” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 11160, subd. 5(A); Huerta, at pp. 922, 924.)
George Huerta worked for CSI Electrical Contractors at the California Flats Solar Project, a facility on private land in Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties. A designated road ran from a perimeter guard shack to the employee parking lots; a security gate sat on that road several miles in, a 10-to-15-minute drive from the lots. CSI management told Huerta the gate was the “first place” he had to be at the start of the workday. (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 916.) Each morning guards scanned badges and sometimes peered into vehicles; each evening workers queued again for an exit procedure — up to a minute or more per vehicle, producing delays of five to more than 30 minutes — during which guards visually inspected truck beds for stolen tools or endangered species. None of that time was paid. (Ibid.) Because two endangered species lived nearby, an incidental take permit imposed a 20-mile-per-hour limit and route restrictions, and a biologist cleared the road each morning before anyone could enter. (Id. at p. 917.) CSI enforced those rules and its own — speed limits, access-road-only travel, no honking, no audible music — on pain of suspension or termination; the drive was unpaid. (Ibid.) Finally, two collective bargaining agreements specified an unpaid 30-minute meal period; CSI barred workers from leaving the site and directed them to spend meal periods at a designated area near their assigned installation site. (Ibid.)
Procedural history
Huerta filed a wage and hour class action in Monterey County Superior Court; CSI removed it to the Northern District of California, which certified a class and then granted CSI two partial summary judgments disposing of the class claims. (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at pp. 917–918.) On Huerta’s appeal, the Ninth Circuit certified three questions to the California Supreme Court: whether time waiting to scan a badge and undergo vehicle inspection before exiting the security gate is “hours worked”; whether the drive between the gate and the parking lots, under employer rules, is “hours worked” or “employer-mandated travel”; and whether an unpaid CBA meal period is compensable when workers are prohibited from leaving but not required to work. (Id. at p. 915, quoting Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors, Inc., supra, 39 F.4th at p. 1177.) The court accepted review and answered all three. (Huerta, at pp. 915–916, 937–938.)
Issue
Three questions under Wage Order No. 16: (1) Is time spent on the employer’s premises awaiting and undergoing a mandatory exit procedure, including visual inspection of the employee’s personal vehicle, “hours worked” under section 2(J)? (2) Is the drive between the security gate and the parking lots compensable as “employer-mandated travel” under section 5(A), or as “hours worked” given the site rules that govern the drive? (3) When a qualifying collective bargaining agreement provides an “unpaid meal period,” is that time nonetheless compensable where the employer confines employees to the premises or a designated area — and may the employee sue under Labor Code section 1194? (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 915.)
Holding
First, exit time is compensable: an employee “awaiting and undergoing an employer-mandated exit procedure that includes the employer’s visual inspection of the employee’s personal vehicle” is subject to the employer’s control, “even when in his personal vehicle.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at pp. 915, 921–922.) Second, the gate-to-lot drive is compensable as “employer-mandated travel” under section 5(A) only “if the security gate was the first location where the employee’s presence was required for an employment-related reason other than the practical necessity of accessing the worksite” — a sole entry point is not enough — and the drive is not “hours worked,” because “ordinary workplace rules” imposed during a drive in a personal vehicle “do[] not create the requisite level of employer control.” (Id. at pp. 915–916, 924–926, 929–931.) Third, notwithstanding a section 512(e)-compliant CBA designating meal periods unpaid, the time is “hours worked” — recoverable via Labor Code section 1194 — “if the employer prohibits the employee from leaving the employer’s premises or a designated area during the meal period and if this prohibition prevents the employee from engaging in otherwise feasible personal activities.” (Id. at p. 916; see id. at pp. 935–937.) The court expressed no view on how the record resolves the gate’s status or the meal-period confinement here. (Id. at pp. 925–926, 936.)
Reasoning
Question 1 — the exit inspection is Frlekin in a personal vehicle. In Frlekin, the court held Apple retail workers were under Apple’s control while awaiting mandatory exit bag searches. (Frlekin, supra, 8 Cal.5th at p. 1047.) The same indicia — mandatoriness, confinement to the premises, “specific and supervised tasks,” and an employer-serving purpose — controlled here, and the personal vehicle changed nothing: “An employee in his personal vehicle may be subject to his employer’s control within the meaning of the wage order if sufficient indicia of control are present.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at pp. 919–920.) Compliance was “strictly required for every employee”; Huerta had to queue, present his badge, and submit his truck to inspection; and the procedure served CSI’s interests in badge integrity, theft prevention, and environmental compliance. (Id. at pp. 920–921.) The court rejected CSI’s analogy to swiping out of a parking garage: the plan required personnel “consistently inspect[ing] any vehicle,” and a procedure taking “up to a minute or more per vehicle” extends beyond scanning a badge — with Troester’s rejection of the federal de minimis doctrine ensuring those minutes count. (Id. at p. 921, citing Troester v. Starbucks Corp. (2018) 5 Cal.5th 829, 835.)
Question 2(a) — “employer-mandated travel” turns on why the first location is required. Section 5(A) makes travel “after the first location where the employee’s presence is required” compensable at the regular rate. Huerta read “first location” literally — management told him the gate was the “first place” he had to be. CSI read it to require a Morillion-style gathering point. The court rejected both poles. Unlike “hours worked,” the IWC “did not tether” employer-mandated travel to control during the travel; the trigger is simply employer-required presence at an initial location followed by mandated travel. (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 924.) But “de facto arrival times” cannot suffice, or ordinary commuting would become compensable whenever premises have one entrance: a location qualifies only “when it is required for an employment-related reason other than the practical necessity of reaching the worksite” — picking up supplies, receiving work orders, performing work. (Id. at pp. 924–925.) The court drew support from the IWC hearing record, where a construction-trades representative described report-here-then-travel-there jobsite practices. (Id. at p. 925.) Because the record conflicted — declarations that CSI called the gate the “first place” and that biologist road-clearing caused entry delays, against CSI’s contrary declarations and the undisputed fact that the gate was the only access point — the court articulated the standard and “express[ed] no view” on its application, listing as relevant “what purpose is served by the employee’s presence at the location, what activities occur there, and how much time is spent there.” (Id. at pp. 925–926.)
Question 2(b) — ordinary site rules do not convert a drive into “hours worked.” Huerta argued the ITP-derived and CSI-imposed rules — speed limits, route restrictions, no music, no stopping — placed him under CSI’s control for the 10-to-15-minute drive. The court disagreed: “Rules designed to ensure safe, lawful, and orderly conduct while traveling on an employer’s premises … do not impose a level of control that renders the time compensable.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 929.) Such rules exist “in virtually every workplace” — warehouses, amusement parks, universities, hospitals — and Huerta’s theory “has no limiting principle”: it would make compensable every walk from a parking lot, wait for an elevator, or gum-chewing prohibition en route to a time clock. (Id. at p. 929.) Morillion was different because the employer required employees to ride its buses and forbade their own transportation, forfeiting the commuter’s freedom to choose route, time, and errands; Huerta’s inability to run errands on the access road was “no different from the inability of an employee with a 30-minute commute” to use that half hour personally. (Id. at p. 930, citing Morillion v. Royal Packing Co. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 575, 586–587.) Nor was the drive “suffered or permitted” work: driving oneself to the lots is not “‘tasks or exertion that a manager would recognize as work.’” (Huerta, at p. 931, quoting Hernandez v. Pacific Bell Telephone Co. (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 131, 142.) The court also rebuffed CSI’s Portal-to-Portal argument — that California’s 1947 wage-order revision adopted the federal exclusion of premises travel — reaffirming Morillion’s holding that the IWC’s control-based definition departed from, and exceeds, the federal standard. (Huerta, at pp. 926–928.)
Question 3 — a CBA can shape the meal period, but cannot waive the minimum wage for confined time. The parties agreed the CBAs satisfied Labor Code section 512, subdivision (e) and Wage Order No. 16, section 10(E), exempting CSI from the ordinary meal-period rules; the dispute was whether exemption from section 10(D) — the on-duty meal-period provision — let the parties bargain for unpaid time during which workers remained under CSI’s control. (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 932.) The court held it does not: reading the exemption to let employees “bargain away” pay for on-duty meal time “would run afoul of the well-established principle that the right to a minimum wage under Labor Code section 1194, subdivision (a) is unwaivable.” (Id. at pp. 932–933, citing Gutierrez v. Brand Energy Services of California, Inc. (2020) 50 Cal.App.5th 786, 799–800.) The exemption permits bargaining for voluntary paid on-duty meal periods; the minimum-wage floor flows from section 4(B) and Labor Code section 1194, which authorizes suit “[n]otwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage.” (Huerta, at pp. 933–934.) On when an ostensibly off-duty meal period is compensable, the court applied Bono’s rule — control persists where the employer “restrains an employee from leaving the work place” and “prevents the employee from using the time effectively for his or her own purposes” — and held confinement compensable where it “forecloses the employee from engaging in activities he or she could otherwise engage in if permitted to leave.” (Id. at pp. 934–935, citing Bono Enterprises, Inc. v. Bradshaw (1995) 32 Cal.App.4th 968, 975.) There is “a meaningful difference between being required to eat at one’s workstation or in a designated meal area and being allowed to return to one’s personal vehicle or take a walk” — a phone call, a nap, “a moment of quiet.” (Huerta, at p. 935.) One caution cuts the other way: where a remote site’s distances merely make leaving impractical in 30 minutes, impracticality alone “is not sufficient to establish employer control.” (Id. at p. 936, citing Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc. (2016) 2 Cal.5th 257, 270.)
Significance
Huerta completes a doctrinal arc that runs from Morillion (compulsory bus travel) through Mendiola (on-call time) and Frlekin (exit searches): under the control clause, what matters is “‘[t]he level of the employer’s control over its employees’” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 919), not the label — commute, security line, or lunch — attached to the time. The decision extends Frlekin into the personal vehicle, gives Wage Order No. 16’s “employer-mandated travel” provision its first Supreme Court construction, and closes a bargaining loophole by holding the minimum wage unwaivable even in a section 512(e)-qualifying CBA. At the same time, it is a genuinely two-sided opinion. Employers gained a firm rule that ordinary premises rules — speed limits, route and conduct restrictions — do not make travel time “hours worked,” and a holding that a sole entry gate, without more, does not trigger travel pay; the court expressly refused to adopt “a categorical rule of compensability for any time that an employee spends traveling on work premises.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 929.)
Two features matter beyond Wage Order 16. First, because nearly all wage orders share section 2(J)’s definition of “hours worked” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 918, citing Morillion, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 581), the exit-procedure and meal-period holdings translate across industries — retail loss-prevention lines, warehouse security checks, confined lunch policies at remote or secure facilities. The travel holding, by contrast, construes a term “unique to Wage Order No. 16” (id. at p. 924) and does not import a travel-pay right into other wage orders. Second, the meal-period holding gives unionized workers a nonnegotiable floor: a CBA may define, schedule, and structure meal periods — Araquistain survives — but the minimum wage for controlled time is off the bargaining table, enforceable in court under section 1194 regardless of the agreement’s “unpaid” label. (Id. at pp. 933–934, 936–937.)
Key quotes
“An employee in his personal vehicle may be subject to his employer’s control within the meaning of the wage order if sufficient indicia of control are present.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 920.)
“We hold that an employee’s presence at a location is ‘required by the employer’ within the meaning of the wage order when it is required for an employment-related reason other than the practical necessity of reaching the worksite.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at pp. 924–925.)
“Even at remote worksites, there is a meaningful difference between being required to eat at one’s workstation or in a designated meal area and being allowed to return to one’s personal vehicle or take a walk. In the latter situations, an employee may be able to make personal phone calls, take a nap, or simply enjoy a moment of quiet.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 935.)
Practice pointer
Build wage claims around Huerta’s three distinct showings rather than a generic “control” theory. For security or exit lines, document mandatoriness, confinement, the specific tasks required (queuing, badge presentation, opening compartments), the procedure’s duration per vehicle, and whom it benefits — then invoke Troester to defeat any de minimis defense. For travel-pay claims under Wage Order 16, do not rest on a declaration that the employer called the gate the “first place” to be; Huerta says that is “insufficient by itself.” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 926.) Discover the purpose of the required stop: badge issuance, safety briefings, tool pickup, biologist clearances, staging instructions — anything employment-related beyond mere access — plus what happens there and how long it takes. Do not plead the drive as “hours worked” based on site rules alone; that theory is dead. For meal periods at secure or remote sites — including under a CBA — plead confinement and, critically, foreclosed alternatives: identify what workers could have done if allowed to leave the designated area (return to vehicles, walk, make private calls) and show a policy, not mere geography, prevented it, because impracticality without prohibition fails under Augustus. Expect employers to recharacterize confinement as distance; the answer is evidence of enforced restrictions — required lunch areas, no-return-to-vehicle rules, discipline for leaving.
Open questions
The court answered questions of law and pointedly left the facts open: it “express[ed] no view on whether the Security Gate was ‘the first location’ where Huerta’s presence was required” (Huerta, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 925), and likewise declined to say whether CSI’s meal-period restrictions actually foreclosed otherwise feasible activities, noting that “[f]urther evidentiary development may be needed.” (Id. at p. 936.) The contours of a qualifying “employment-related reason” at a first location — how substantial the purpose, activity, and time must be — are left to case-by-case application of the three “[r]elevant considerations.” (Id. at p. 926.) The line between a policy that “forecloses” feasible personal activities and site features that merely make leaving impractical will generate litigation at remote and secure facilities, and the opinion does not quantify how much foreclosure suffices. Because “employer-mandated travel” is unique to Wage Order No. 16, whether analogous travel time is compensable for workers under other wage orders remains governed solely by the control and suffer-or-permit clauses. (Id. at p. 924.) Finally, the court did not address premium pay, derivative penalties, or how its minimum-wage holding interacts with contractual rates above the minimum for on-duty meal time — section 1194 supplies the floor, not the ceiling. (Id. at pp. 936–937.)
See also: Camp v. Home Depot · Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating