Do employers have to pay for bag-check time in California?
Yes. In Frlekin v. Apple (2020) the California Supreme Court held that time spent waiting for and undergoing an employer-required search of a bag or personal device is compensable hours worked, because the employee stays under the employer's control throughout. Federal law reached the opposite result in 2014; California employers follow the state rule.
Apple required retail staff to submit to an exit search of their bags and personal devices, and ran those searches after employees had clocked out. Depending on how many managers were free, staff waited anywhere from a few minutes to nearly half an hour, unpaid.
The court's reasoning turned on control, not on effort. An employee who cannot leave the premises, must remain on site, and must submit to a search is being directed by the employer — and under California's wage orders, time under the employer's control is hours worked whether or not the employee is producing anything.
This is one of the clearest places California and federal law split. In Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk (2014) the U.S. Supreme Court held security screening was not compensable under the federal Portal-to-Portal Act. That holding does not govern a California wage claim, and an employer applying the federal answer here will be wrong.
The practical fix is procedural rather than technological: the search has to happen before the punch, not after it. Any policy that ends the shift on the clock and then keeps someone on the premises is creating unpaid time.
Sources
Last reviewed 2026-08-09. Informational only — not legal advice. California rules change; confirm against the current source before acting.