SAN JOSE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – A California court of appeal has given new life to a class action that says time spent driving to the first business appointment of the day rather than an office could be considered time at work – depending on the amount of work clutter in the car.
Michael Oliver is suing Konica Minolta Business Solutions, claiming he is owed wages for his driving time to his first job and home from the last. A Santa Clara County judge said that isn’t the case, but the Sixth Appellate District reversed that in an order certified June 24.
Oliver doesn’t travel to an office for work. Instead, as a service technician working on copiers and other machines, he drives to customers, taking his own car instead of a company vehicle.
He wants pay for the time he spent commuting on his first and last calls and reimbursement for mileage on those trips.
“Triable issues of material fact exist regarding whether service technicians were required to carry tools and parts in their personal vehicles during their commutes, and regarding the volume of tools and parts that they were required to carry during their commutes,” Justice Patricia Bamattre-Manoukian wrote.
If taking tools and parts to a call is optional, then employees are not “subject to the control” of their employer for the purposes of determining if they should be paid during drives, the court ruled.
Similarly, if employees are required to carry those tools and parts “strictly speaking” or “as a practical matter,” they are not subject to the control of his employer, the court ruled.
However, if employees are carrying so many tools and parts that they could not use “the time effectively for (their) own purposes,” then they are subject to the control of their employer.
It is whether Oliver and the class he seeks to represent are carrying that many tools and parts that the trial court will now have to decide.
“The record reflects that, as a practical matter, the available space in a service technician’s vehicle would have been limited depending on the volume of parts the service technician was required to carry during the commute, which would accordingly limit the service technician’s personal pursuits,” Bamattre-Manoukian wrote.
“One service technician testified that, to use his vehicle for personal reasons on weekends, such as to go out with family or friends, he unloaded the parts from his vehicle on weekends and then reloaded the vehicle on Sunday night.