Apple still has a chance to argue its ‘bag check’ policy for retail store employees

The Ninth Circuit of California has amended a ruling in favor of Apple retail store workers who say they should be paid for time spent waiting for end-of-shift bag searches, giving Apple a chance to argue to the district court that the time was too trivial to merit pay, reports Law360 (a subscription is required to read the entire article).

In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Apple must pay retail workers for the time they spend waiting for their bags to be checked.

A 2013 lawsuit alleged that Apple should pay employees for the time it takes to do security bag checks. These checks are done at the end of shifts and were designed to insure that employees were not taking merchandise from the retail outlets. 

Apple won at the trial level in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which said employees of the tech company chose to bring bags to work and thus subject themselves to the company’s search policy. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit turned to the state court to interpret California law. 

That court found that Apple violated California law when it failed to pay employees for time they spend waiting for mandatory bag and iPhone searches at the end of their shifts. Apple appealed and lost.