Sandifer v. United States Steel Corp.
The Court ruled that steelworkers' time spent putting on and taking off protective gear like flame-retardant jackets, hardhats, and work gloves counts as "changing clothes" under a federal wage law, meaning employers and unions can agree not to pay for it.
The decision clarifies a long-disputed phrase in the Fair Labor Standards Act, giving employers and unions a clearer, more workable standard for deciding what counts as compensable time without requiring judges to time each item down to the minute.
“de minimis non curat lex is not Latin for close enough for government work.”
The Court explains why the de minimis doctrine does not fit this statute about small amounts of time.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment to U.S. Steel; the Seventh Circuit affirmed; the workers asked the Supreme Court to review the ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A group of steelworkers sued United States Steel Corporation, seeking backpay for time spent putting on and removing 12 kinds of protective gear — including flame-retardant clothing, a hardhat, gloves, boots, safety glasses, earplugs, and a respirator — before and after shifts at steel plants, arguing this time should be paid.
The question before the Court
Does the time steelworkers spend putting on and taking off protective safety gear count as "changing clothes" that unions and employers can agree not to pay for?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that the time steelworkers spend putting on and taking off most of their protective gear counts as "changing clothes" under a federal wage law, so their union and U.S. Steel could lawfully agree not to pay for it. The Court defined "clothes" broadly to include protective items like flame-retardant jackets, hardhats, and gloves, rejecting the workers' argument that safety gear doesn't count as clothing.
Of the 12 disputed items, only safety glasses, earplugs, and a respirator fell outside that definition. But because the time spent on those three items was minor compared to the rest, the Court held the entire donning-and-doffing period still qualified as noncompensable "changing clothes" time, so the workers were not entitled to backpay.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Unionized workers who wear protective gear — in steel mills, meatpacking plants, and similar industries — may not get paid separately for suiting-up time if their collective-bargaining agreement says so. Employers and unions gain a clearer rule for negotiating these terms, and courts avoid having to parse minute-by-minute how workers spent their prep time.
What changes now
The Seventh Circuit's judgment for U.S. Steel is affirmed, so the workers' claim for backpay fails. This is a final merits decision resolving the meaning of §203(o) nationally; other employers and unions with similar collective-bargaining provisions can now apply the Court's 'vast majority of the time' test to donning-and-doffing disputes without further Supreme Court involvement.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the workers' collective-bargaining agreement actually made the gear-changing time noncompensable — it treated that as a given. It also left the question of travel time between locker rooms and workstations to the lower courts, since that issue was not before it.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence in part — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor joined the Court's opinion in full except for footnote 7, which discussed how narrowly to construe exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. She did not explain her disagreement with that footnote in a separate writing, but her partial join signals she did not endorse its treatment of the narrow-construction principle.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the undefined word 'clothes' in 29 U.S.C. §203(o) according to its ordinary meaning at the time Congress wrote the law, relying on period dictionaries that defined clothes as items designed and used to cover the body and commonly regarded as articles of dress.
- The Court rejected the workers' argument that 'clothes' excludes protective gear, reasoning that protective covering can still serve comfort and decency, and that excluding protective items would make the statute nearly meaningless since protective gear is often the only clothing essential to many jobs.
- The Court also rejected U.S. Steel's broader reading that 'clothes' means an entire work outfit, finding no textual support for stretching the word that far.
- Turning to the word 'changing,' the Court found it can mean either substituting one thing for another or simply altering one's dress by layering items on, and read the statute's broader purpose — predictable collective bargaining — to favor the broader 'altering' meaning.
- Applying this framework, the Court found 9 of 12 disputed items (jacket, pants, hood, hardhat, snood, wristlets, gloves, leggings, boots) qualified as clothes, while safety glasses, earplugs, and a respirator did not.
- Rather than apply the 'de minimis' doctrine (ignoring legally insignificant amounts of time) to subtract time spent on non-clothes items, the Court adopted a 'vast majority of the time' test: if most of the donning-and-doffing period involves clothes, the whole period is noncompensable under §203(o), and courts need not parse minutes item by item.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Steiner v. Mitchell (350 U. S. 247)
The Court relies on Steiner's rule that clothes-changing can be an integral, indispensable part of a job.
Limits Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. (328 U. S. 680)
The Court says Anderson's de minimis doctrine does not comfortably apply to this statute about small time increments.