Employment / 1 min read
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that employers are required to compensate employees for time spent traveling between their home and their travel assignment location when: (1) the employee remains at the remote location overnight and (2) the travel occurs during their ordinary hours.
The decision clarified the "normal travel" rule that employers rely on to avoid paying their employees for the time spent commuting to and from work. The court held that this rule does not apply when employees travel to a remote location and remain there overnight for several days or weeks.
Instead, the court ruled that travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from home. Traveling away from home is clearly worktime when it cuts across the employee’s normal workday. The time not only includes hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours, but also during the corresponding hours on non-working days.
To illustrate, the court provided the following example, which is also found in the applicable regulation: "[I]f an employee regularly works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday the travel time during these hours is [compensable] worktime on Saturday and Sunday as well as on the other days."
Although the decision has only become law in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, the logic behind the decision could be adopted by other circuits—including the Fifth Circuit (which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi).