Optional Shop Stops Do Not Convert Company‑Vehicle Commuting into Compensable Time under the FLSA: Eleventh Circuit Affirms in May v. Alabama Plumbing Contractor LLC

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (Non-Argument Calendar; Unpublished)

Date: March 21, 2025

Cases: Nos. 23‑11593 and 23‑11595 (consolidated appeals)

Introduction

This consolidated, unpublished per curiam decision concerns whether travel time spent by plumbers and apprentices in employer-owned trucks between a company “shop” and commercial jobsites is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 206, 207, in light of the Portal‑to‑Portal Act, 29 U.S.C. § 254(a). The plaintiffs—six current and former employees of Alabama Plumbing Contractor LLC (APC)—sued APC and its part-owner, Brent Vacarella, asserting overtime violations based on uncompensated travel time in company trucks when going to and from the shop and jobsites. The defendants maintained that such time fell squarely within the Portal‑to‑Portal Act’s commuting exceptions and was therefore noncompensable.

The district court granted summary judgment to APC and Vacarella. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that, where reporting to the shop was not required and many employees commuted directly from home to the jobsites, the shop stop—and any associated travel in employer trucks—was not an “integral and indispensable” part of the employees’ principal activities. Consequently, the time was noncompensable commuting under § 254(a). The court also rejected a threshold jurisdictional challenge regarding § 216(b) collective action opt‑ins, declared the appeal from the denial of conditional collective certification moot upon affirmance, and found certain “individual claims” abandoned for inadequate briefing.

Summary of the Opinion

• Holding: Travel time in company trucks between APC’s shop and jobsites is not compensable under the FLSA because reporting to the shop was not an integral and indispensable part of plaintiffs’ principal activities; it was optional. Accordingly, commuting in an employer vehicle falls within the Portal‑to‑Portal Act’s commuting exceptions.
• Key factual pillars:
  • APC’s plumbers and apprentices were expected at jobsites by 7:00 a.m.; they were not required to report to the shop before or after work.
  • About half of the workforce drove directly from home to the jobsite (and home from the last jobsite), bypassing the shop entirely.
  • Where employees chose to use an APC truck, the truck generally had to be returned to the shop (insurance policy); permission was needed to take a truck home.
  • APC’s October 25, 2019 text message reiterated: “Time starts when you get to the job, not when you get to the shop.”
  • APC later closed the shop (December 2022) without disrupting the core plumbing work—further support that the shop stop was not indispensable.
• Statutory and doctrinal framework: The court applied the Portal‑to‑Portal Act and the Supreme Court’s “integral and indispensable” test (Steiner; Integrity Staffing), as interpreted in the Eleventh Circuit’s Llorca decision addressing commuting in employer vehicles.
• Procedural rulings:
  • Standing/jurisdiction: The named plaintiffs had standing to appeal; § 216(b)’s opt‑in requirement did not apply because the district court denied collective certification.
  • Mootness: The appeal of the denial of conditional certification was moot after affirmance on the merits.
  • Abandonment: Two appellants’ additional “individual” claims were abandoned for perfunctory briefing (Sapuppo).
• Disposition: Affirmed.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

1) Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247 (1956). Steiner established that “principal activity or activities” include tasks that are “integral and indispensable” to those principal activities. In other words, if an activity is an intrinsic element of the job and cannot be dispensed with to perform the job, time spent is compensable.

2) Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014). Integrity Staffing sharpened the definitions central to Steiner’s test: integral means necessary to the completeness of the job’s whole; indispensable means a duty that cannot be set aside. The Supreme Court emphasized that the test is tied to the “productive work the employee is employed to perform.” Applying these definitions, security screenings at issue in Integrity Staffing were not integral and indispensable to order-filler work and were therefore noncompensable.

3) Llorca v. Sheriff, Collier County, Florida, 893 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2018). Llorca applied Integrity Staffing within the Eleventh Circuit, holding that law enforcement officers’ commuting in marked patrol cars and certain incidental pre/post‑shift tasks were not compensable. The court underscored that commuting and preliminary/postliminary tasks are compensable only if they are both integral and indispensable. Llorca also reflects the Employee Commuter Flexibility Act (incorporated in 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)), which clarifies that use of employer vehicles and incidental activities associated with commuting—within the normal commuting area and subject to an employer-employee agreement—are not principal activities.

4) Jefferson v. Sewon America, Inc., 891 F.3d 911 (11th Cir. 2018). Cited for the summary judgment standard: de novo review, drawing all reasonable inferences for the non-movant.

5) Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Insurance Co., 739 F.3d 678 (11th Cir. 2014). Cited for the briefing rule: claims are abandoned on appeal if addressed only perfunctorily without supporting arguments and authority.

Legal Reasoning: Why the Travel Time Was Not Compensable

The FLSA generally requires minimum wage and overtime pay for non‑exempt employees. But the Portal‑to‑Portal Act excludes compensation for: (i) “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity,” and (ii) preliminary or postliminary activities occurring before the first or after the last principal activity of the day. The statute further clarifies that using an employer vehicle and incidental activities undertaken for commuting are not part of principal activities if the travel occurs within the normal commuting area and the use is subject to an employer-employee agreement.

The court applied Integrity Staffing’s “integral and indispensable” test. A pivotal premise in the opinion is the optional nature of the shop stop. The record reflected that:

• Many employees bypassed the shop entirely and went straight from home to the jobsite.
• APC communicated assignments by phone or at jobsites.
• APC later closed the shop without impairing performance of core plumbing functions.

From these undisputed facts, the court reasoned that reporting to the shop could not be “indispensable”—employees could and did “dispense with” it. The opinion expressly links this conclusion to Integrity Staffing’s language: if an activity can be “dispensed with, set aside, disregarded, or neglected” without preventing performance of the principal activities, it is not indispensable. Because the shop stop was not indispensable, the ensuing travel in company trucks to the jobsite remained what the statute characterizes as noncompensable commuting.

Notably, the plaintiffs testified that—before another plumber filed an FLSA suit in December 2019—they were instructed to report to the shop to receive assignments, gather supplies, and load or hook up heavy equipment. The Eleventh Circuit nonetheless affirmed summary judgment, emphasizing the undisputed evidence that many employees did not use the shop at all and that APC could (and eventually did) operate without the shop. In this framing, the dispositive point was not whether shop activity sometimes occurred, but whether the job required the shop stop as an intrinsic element that employees could not dispense with while still performing their principal plumbing work. The answer, the court held, was no.

Although the opinion quotes § 254(a)’s “employer’s vehicle” clause (added by the Employee Commuter Flexibility Act), the court did not dwell on whether there was an explicit agreement governing vehicle use or the “normal commuting area” prong, presumably because the non‑indispensability finding was outcome‑determinative. The October 2019 text announcement that “time starts when you get to the job” evidences, at minimum, the employer’s communicated understanding of commuting policy; in Llorca, the Eleventh Circuit has treated similar employer-employee arrangements as satisfying § 254(a) in substance. But the present opinion ultimately relies on the integral-and-indispensable analysis rather than resolving the case on the ECFA’s agreement element.

The Significance of “Optionality” and the Continuous Workday

Under the “continuous workday” doctrine (recognized by the Supreme Court and the DOL), compensable time generally starts with the first principal activity and ends with the last. Thus, if employees are required to perform compensable work at a shop before traveling, the subsequent travel may be compensable as part of the continuous workday. The court here implicitly rejected that path because it concluded plaintiffs were not required to go to the shop to perform any integral and indispensable task prior to traveling. The workday, therefore, began at the jobsite, making the pre‑arrival travel commuting—and noncompensable.

Standard of Review and Summary Judgment Posture

Applying de novo review, the court resolved competing narratives by focusing on undisputed features: many employees never went to the shop; assignments could be given remotely or at jobsites; and APC closed the shop without affecting core work. Even accepting plaintiffs’ descriptions of morning tasks at the shop in the past, the lack of necessity sealed the result. In short, as a matter of law on an undisputed record, the shop stop did not convert commuting into compensable time.

Jurisdictional Challenge under § 216(b)

Defendants argued the court lacked jurisdiction because the suits were brought under § 216(b) and none of the appellants had filed written opt‑in consents. The Eleventh Circuit rejected this argument as “meritless” because the district court had denied collective certification; the suits did not proceed as collective actions. All six appellants were named plaintiffs in the operative complaints and therefore had standing to appeal. This is a straightforward but important clarification: § 216(b)’s opt‑in requirement limits who may join a collective, not who may continue litigating as a named individual after certification is denied.

Mootness of the Conditional Certification Appeal

Because the court affirmed summary judgment on the merits, there was no live controversy about conditional certification of a collective. That piece of the appeal was declared moot.

Abandonment of Additional Claims

The court deemed certain additional “individual” claims—raised by McAnally and Hoffman—abandoned due to perfunctory briefing without developed argument or citation, citing Sapuppo’s long‑standing rule. This underscores the Eleventh Circuit’s consistent insistence on adequate appellate briefing.

Impact

On FLSA travel time litigation: This decision reinforces a recurring theme: commuting—whether in a personal car or employer vehicle—remains noncompensable unless the employee has already begun a “principal activity” or is required to perform a task that is integral and indispensable to the job before or during the commute. The ruling gives employers and courts a clean evidentiary proxy for “indispensability”: if a substantial portion of similarly situated employees can and do bypass the shop without impairing performance, the shop stop is unlikely to be integral and indispensable.

On operational choices in skilled trades: For construction, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and similar trades, the opinion suggests that: (i) where assignments can be communicated electronically and parts/equipment can be staged or delivered to the jobsite, pre‑shift shop stops will not typically be compensable; (ii) where employees must report to a shop to load specialized or heavy equipment that is essential to the day’s tasks and cannot practically be staged otherwise, plaintiffs may still have a viable theory that the travel following those required shop activities is compensable under the continuous workday doctrine. The present decision does not foreclose such fact‑intensive claims; it turns on optionality.

On employer policies and the ECFA: Employers using company vehicles should: (a) define in writing that “time starts at the job” and that using company vehicles for commuting is optional and within a normal commuting area; and (b) avoid imposing significant non‑incidental requirements during the commute (e.g., mandatory loading, inventory checks that are integral to the day’s work, or transporting indispensable tools that must be obtained pre‑shift at the shop). Incidental tasks related to commuting are protected under § 254(a) as clarified by Llorca; but “integral and indispensable” pre‑shift tasks are not.

Persuasive, not binding: Because the opinion is unpublished (“DO NOT PUBLISH”), it is not binding precedent within the Eleventh Circuit, although it may be cited as persuasive authority. Still, its reliance on Integrity Staffing and Llorca aligns with published circuit and Supreme Court law, increasing its persuasive force in similar disputes.

Litigation strategy implications: Plaintiffs should carefully develop evidence that the employer required pre‑shift shop tasks that are intrinsic to the day’s core work and that cannot be dispensed with. Defendants should document the optional nature of shop visits, alternative assignment communication methods, and the ability to perform work without pre‑shift shop activities. Evidence that a meaningful portion of employees regularly bypass the shop (or that the employer can operate without one) can be decisive.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Principal activity: The main work the employer hired the employee to perform (e.g., plumbing at a jobsite).
• Preliminary/postliminary activities: Tasks before the first principal activity or after the last that are generally noncompensable (e.g., ordinary commuting).
• Integral and indispensable: A task is compensable only if it is both:
  • Integral (part of the job’s intrinsic whole), and
  • Indispensable (cannot be dispensed with if the job is to be performed).
  If employees can skip the task and still perform their core job (as many did here), it is usually not integral and indispensable.
• Continuous workday rule: Once an employee starts the first principal activity, the rest of the day’s time—walking or traveling between tasks—is typically compensable until the last principal activity ends. But the day does not start until a principal activity begins. Optional shop stops usually do not trigger the start of the workday.
• Commuting in employer vehicles (ECFA/§ 254(a)): Using the employer’s vehicle for commuting—and incidental tasks related to that use—is not compensable if:
  • the travel is within the normal commuting area, and
  • the use of the vehicle is subject to an employer-employee agreement (which can be written or implicit in policy/practice).
• Abandonment on appeal: Arguments are deemed abandoned when presented with only passing reference or without supporting authority.

Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit’s unpublished decision in these consolidated cases confirms a practical, evidence-driven rule: where reporting to an employer’s shop is optional and many employees successfully bypass it, the shop stop is not an integral and indispensable part of the job. Consequently, the travel in company trucks between home/shop and the jobsite remains noncompensable commuting under the Portal‑to‑Portal Act. The court’s reasoning rests squarely on Integrity Staffing and the Eleventh Circuit’s own Llorca decision, and it showcases how “optional” logistics—and the ability to perform core work without a shop—can defeat FLSA travel time claims.

Beyond the merits, the opinion clarifies that named plaintiffs retain standing to appeal even when collective certification is denied (no § 216(b) opt‑in needed), and it reiterates the Eleventh Circuit’s strict approach to appellate briefing: undeveloped claims are abandoned. While not precedential, the decision will likely be cited persuasively in FLSA commuting disputes across the construction and skilled trades sectors, and it offers concrete guidance to employers and employees on structuring and evaluating pre‑shift logistics in light of the Portal‑to‑Portal Act.