Supreme Court Denies Review Of Compensability Of Law Enforcement Employees' Commuting Time
The United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari in a case in which the Federal Circuit held that time spent by federal law enforcement employees driving to and from work in government-issued vehicles was not compensable work, since the restrictions placed on the employees' commutes beyond the mere driving of the vehicles were minimal.
The employees were issued government-owned police vehicles and required as a condition of their employment to commute from home to work in those vehicles. This requirement facilitated their employers' law enforcement missions, since the cars were available to the officers for rapid response to emergency calls at any time, whether the officers were at home or proceeding on their commutes. The officers' time was not entirely their own during their commutes: they were required to have their weapons and other law enforcement-related equipment and to have on and monitor their vehicles' communication equipment. They were not allowed to run any personal errands in their government vehicles, so their commute was required to proceed directly from home to work and back again without unauthorized detours or stops.
Adams v. U.S.