Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk: Security Screening and the Federal Workday

In Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014), the Supreme Court held that the warehouse security screenings alleged in the case were not compensable under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act. The screenings were neither the principal activities employees were hired to perform nor integral and indispensable to those activities. Id. at 35–37.

The decision’s federal-law boundary is essential. An employer’s reliance on Busk does not decide a California wage claim, a separate state statutory claim, or a contractual promise to pay screening time.

The claim concerned required screening after warehouse work

Integrity Staffing supplied workers who retrieved inventory and packaged it for shipment at warehouses. At the end of shifts, employees had to pass security screenings designed to prevent theft. Their complaint alleged waits and screenings taking roughly 25 minutes and asserted that the employer could reduce the delays through staffing or scheduling changes. Those were allegations considered at the dismissal stage, not a trial finding measuring every employee’s unpaid time. Id. at 29–30.

The district court dismissed the screening claims. The Ninth Circuit reversed on the theory that the screenings were required and benefited the employer. The Supreme Court rejected that reasoning and reversed the Ninth Circuit’s judgment. Id. at 30–31, 36–37.

Required by the employer was not the federal test

The Portal-to-Portal Act excludes certain preliminary and postliminary activities performed before or after the principal activities for which an employee is employed. The Court treated an integral and indispensable activity as one intrinsic to those principal activities and one the employee cannot dispense with while performing them. Id. at 33–35.

The screenings did not satisfy that connection to retrieving and packaging products. Integrity Staffing could eliminate the screenings without impairing the employees’ ability to perform their productive work. The fact that the employer imposed the procedure to protect its inventory did not make the screening intrinsic to that work. Id. at 35–36.

This separates two questions that are often conflated: Whether a worker must comply with an employer’s instruction, and whether the particular activity qualifies for pay under the federal statute. Employer requirement and employer benefit alone did not resolve the second question.

Why avoidable delays did not change the holding

The employees argued that improved procedures could reduce their unpaid wait. The Court concluded that the employer’s ability to shorten the screening did not change whether the underlying activity was integral and indispensable. It described demands concerning that noncompensable time as a matter for collective bargaining rather than a basis for the asserted federal claim. Id. at 36–37.

That reasoning does not authorize unpaid waiting during every part of a workday. Current 29 C.F.R. § 790.7 distinguishes preliminary or postliminary activities outside the workday from principal activities and recognizes that context, contract, custom, and practice can change the analysis. A label such as security or waiting is not a substitute for examining the actual duties and timing.

The concurrence sharpened the workday distinction

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan, agreed with the Court. She explained that an indispensable task is one that cannot be omitted without impairing the safe or effective performance of principal work. She also explained the distinction between ordinary ingress and egress procedures and work connected to principal duties. The screenings here fell on the postliminary side. Busk, 574 U.S. at 37–39 (Sotomayor, J., concurring).

Her reasoning helps prevent an overbroad reading. Protective measures necessary to perform hazardous work safely may present a materially different connection to the principal job. The federal question remains tied to what the employee is employed to do, not merely to whether an employer would prefer the activity to occur.

California’s wage-order control test requires a separate analysis

The California Supreme Court later applied its state wage-order control standard to retail bag searches in Frlekin v. Apple Inc., 8 Cal. 5th 1038, 1056–58 (2020). It found the waiting and search time at issue compensable. That result addresses a different source of law; it does not require treating Busk as a universal answer for all jurisdictions.

Our California retail bag-check guide focuses on the practical records needed for that state-law inquiry. Review the work location, applicable wage order, actual controls, principal duties, time records, and any agreement to pay the interval before drawing a conclusion.

Frequently asked questions

Did the Supreme Court hold that all security screening is unpaid?

No. It decided the federal claims concerning the alleged warehouse screenings before it. Different principal duties, timing, contractual provisions, or state law can matter.

Does this defeat a California retail employee’s bag-search claim?

No. California’s distinct wage-order standard and the facts of the exit procedure must be evaluated separately.

Our employment litigation services include reviewing wage claims under the law that actually governs the workplace.