(CN) — Apple offered to pay $29.9 million to employees who claimed they were subjected to routine searches of their bags off the clock in a settlement proposal filed in federal court Friday.
“This is a significant, non-reversionary settlement reached after nearly eight years of hard-fought litigation,” wrote Lee Shalov, plaintiff for the attorney, in the proposed settlement.
The case hinged on a practice Apple implemented that required employees to show their bags and Apple devices before leaving work. These procedures occurred off the clock; a class of employees sued in 2013, arguing they should be paid for their time undergoing security checks.
“If approved, this will be the largest reported settlement in a security search case in California,” Shalov wrote. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The case has proved tortuous and appeared before both the Ninth Circuit and the California Supreme Court during different stages of the litigation.
The California Supreme Court ruled in February 2020 that Apple should be on the hook for the mandatory searches.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye chastised Apple for arguing employees could have left their iPhones and other devices at home given the company’s effusive rhetoric around the devices.
“The irony and inconsistency of Apple’s argument must be noted,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote in the judgment. “Its characterization of the iPhone as unnecessary for its own employees is directly at odds with its description of the iPhone as an ‘integrated and integral’ part of the lives of everyone else.”
Apple makes its employees comply with the bag search policy or face termination. Apple argued throughout the case that the policy is intermittent, only applies to a select group of employees and lasts only seconds.
The chief justice also found Apple wielded control over its workers by forcing them to find a manager or security guard before they could leave the store for lunch breaks or shift endings. Workers also had to unzip or open compartments in their bags, follow the commands of bag searchers to move things around in their bags and allow their Apple devices to be removed, inspected and verified during searches.
According to the unanimous opinion, the ruling should be retroactive. In November 2015, the potential class included 12,000 current and former Apple store employees in California.
Apple argued that its policy did not restrain its employees’ actions during the actual search, and said employees could just as easily opt out by not bringing a bag to work.
But Cantil-Sakauye wrote, referencing the language in the relevant California wage law, “Apple employees are entitled to compensation for the time during which they are subject to Apple’s control.”
“Applying a strictly textual analysis, Apple employees are clearly under Apple’s control while awaiting, and during, the exit searches. Apple controls its employees during this time in several ways,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote.
The California Supreme Court ruled on the matter at the request of the Ninth Circuit, which then ruled that Apple must face the class-action claims in federal court.
The employees in the settlement stand to receive a maximum of about $1,200 apiece, should U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup approve the proposal.
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