Compensable Travel Time Rules for Overnight Work Trips

Normally, an employee’s travel or commuting time is not compensable travel time under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. But when employees travel overnight and stay away from home, different rules apply.

A federal appeals court FLSA decision in a case from Indiana found that the travel time of employees who went to client sites and stayed for days was compensable travel time.

Professional Labor Group, LLC is a staffing firm that provides supplementary construction and industrial workers. It usually requires its workers to go to a client’s remote site and stay until the work is done, typically for a few days or weeks.

PLG paid tradesmen for travel time but did not count it as hours worked.

Tradesmen Worked Away From Home

James Walters, a skilled tradesman, worked for PLG as an hourly, non-exempt employee for about five months in 2021. He said he often traveled to and from remote job sites during what he considered his normal workday, and he sued to be paid for that time.

In addition to claiming he should be paid for the time, he asserted that the travel time should count toward overtime.

A district court ruled for Walters, finding that travel to overnight work assignments is compensable travel time when it occurs during normal working hours.

PLG then appealed that ruling to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin).

General Rule: Commute Time Is Not Paid

The appeals court explained that under the applicable regulation regarding commute time, normal commuting time to and from home is not paid time. “Normal travel time from home to work is not worktime,” the regulation explains. In addition, that general rule applies whether an employee works “at a fixed location or at different job sites.”

PLG argued that this regulation applied to Walters. The appeals court rejected this argument, noting that the regulation contemplates the situation where the employee goes home at the end of the workday. And that is not what Walters – and other PLG employees like him – were doing. Instead, they stayed at client sites for days or weeks at a time.

The appeals court also rejected PLG’s argument that normal, non-compensable commuting time should be defined by what is usual in the particular employment relationship at hand. Again, it relied on the fact that Walters and other workers like him did not go home at the end of the workday.

So if the generally applicable regulation about commuting time did not apply, then which one did?

Compensable Travel Time Rules for Overnight Assignments

To determine whether Walters’ travel was compensable travel time, the appeals court turned to a separate federal regulation addressing overnight travel.

That regulation says travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home, and that travel away from home is worktime if it “cuts across the employee’s workday.”

When that happens, the regulation explains, the employee is just substituting travel for other duties, and the time is paid. The regulation adds that this time is compensable even for corresponding hours on non-working days.

The takeaway from this regulation, according to this court’s ruling: If an employer requires travel away from home overnight and the travel occurs during normal working hours, that travel time is paid.

It was easy to apply the rule set by this regulation to Walters’ case, the appeals court said. He and others like him regularly traveled during their normal working hours to overnight job sites.

Walters was entitled to compensation for that time, the appeals court ruled, and the time should also have been counted toward overtime.

The appeals court also shot down another PLG argument: that under the Portal-to-Portal Act, their workday did not begin until they arrived at a job site. But that act does not apply to situations where employees travel out of town and overnight, the appeals court said.

The lower court’s ruling in favor of Walters was affirmed.

Key Takeaways on Compensable Travel Time

The key takeaway is that when considering compensable travel time, overnight stays change the game.

Don’t let the general rule about commuting time trick you into thinking that travel time is never paid. When travel keeps an employee from returning home at the end of the day and involves an overnight stay, the time is compensable travel time if it cuts across the employee’s workday.

Walters v. Professional Labor Group, LLC, No. 23-3346 (7th Cir. 10/30/24).