Page 65 - MetalForming April 2014

You and The Law
what is “clothing” and what is “special workplace PPE gear or tools.” But, the U.S. Steel case opinion that broadly interprets clothing and focuses on the clothing “period,” as opposed to how long it takes a worker to put on each item of PPE or spe- cial gear, could shape future cases.
Also, the high court rejected the de minimis doctrine (i.e. the law does not take into account trifles) used by the lower courts to avoid having to deduct the time employees spend on putting on and taking off non-clothes items from non- compensable clothes-changing time.
In a somewhat vague part of opinion on this issue, Justice Scalia wrote:
“Or to put it in the context of the present case, there is no more reason to disregard the minute or so necessary to put on glasses, earplugs and respirators, than there is to regard the minute or so necessary to put on a snood. If the statute in question requires courts to select among trifles, de min- imis non curat lex is not Latin for close enough for govern- ment work.”
Since the U.S. Department of Labor interprets that an act cannot be de minimis if it occurs regularly, the workplace wage-and-hour issue of what constitutes “clothing” is likely to continue. MF
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