Huerta v. First Solar, Inc., a Delaware corporation

Background

George Huerta brought a claim against CSI Electrical Contractors, Inc. for unpaid travel time under paragraph 5(A) of California Wage Order 16. That provision requires payment for employer-mandated travel occurring after the first location where the employer requires the employee’s presence.

The court had previously granted CSI’s motion for partial summary judgment and asked the parties to identify any remaining claims. Huerta stated that his paragraph 5(A) claim remained. The court then allowed CSI to file a second summary-judgment motion addressing that claim.

Huerta alleged that workers had to arrive at a security-gate entrance, wait for approval to travel, wait to have their badges scanned, and then travel to the project work area. CSI argued that the security gate was the first location where Huerta’s presence was required and that his claim was foreclosed by the court’s earlier decision in a similar wage case involving the same solar project.

Court’s Analysis

Summary judgment is appropriate when the record shows no genuine dispute about a material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. The court does not weigh conflicting evidence or decide witness credibility at this stage.

The court relied on its reasoning in the earlier related case, where it held that a worker’s brief stop at a guard shack to have a badge scanned was not a location where the worker’s presence was required under Wage Order 16 paragraph 5(A). In that earlier case, the worker stayed in the vehicle and merely presented a badge for scanning.

The court found that Huerta’s circumstances were materially the same. Huerta flashed his badge to a security attendant while remaining in his vehicle, and security guards inspected and scanned badges when vehicles entered and exited the site. The court held that the security gate was not the first location where Huerta’s presence was required and that he was not entitled to compensation for travel time on the access road.

Huerta submitted declarations stating that CSI management told employees they were required to be at the security gate each morning. The court found that this evidence did not change the result because workers in the earlier related case also had to be at the security gate to badge in. The court stated that its ruling was limited to the specific record before it and did not decide whether paragraph 5(A) applies differently at workplaces with different entrance or badging arrangements.

Disposition

The court GRANTED CSI’s second motion for partial summary judgment. It found that Huerta’s passage through the security gate was not the first location where his presence was required and that he was not entitled to compensation for travel time on the access road under Wage Order 16 paragraph 5(A).

The court also GRANTED Huerta’s concurrently filed motion for judicial notice.