A two-year class action suit filed against Apple by employees of its retail stores has been dismissed by a California judge.
The lawsuit was made on the grounds that Apple Store workers spend 10-15 minutes per day undergoing off-the-clock bag searches and security checks which they aren’t paid for. The employees claimed that as the checks are mandatory they should be reimbursed “a few dollars a day” for their time under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Eventually the district judge sided with Apple, noting that employees could easily have avoided the bag searches by leaving their personal effects at home: “our plaintiffs could all freely choose not to bring bags to work, thereby avoiding Apple’s restrictions during exit searches. That free choice is fatal to their claims.”
If Apple had lost the suit it would have had to compensate as much as $60 million, split between 12,400 past and present employees from 52 stores. The Supreme Court has previously ruled in favor of Amazon in a similar case involving the company’s warehouse workers, which set the stage for this ruling. The employees who filed the class action lawsuit are said to be considering their options.
A class action lawsuit filed against Apple by its own employees has been thrown out of court: https://t.co/lGQFMkuLoV
— TapSmart (@TapSmart) November 9, 2015