There’s a brand new type of lawsuit employees and their lawyers are filing against companies:

Some nonexempt employees are claiming they should be paid for the time they spend booting their computers up in the morning and logging off at the end of the day.

Many companies use electronic timeclock software that automatically clocks workers in when their computers are turned on. That means there could be time when people are at their desks but not clocked in. It may just be a few minutes a day, but the time adds up.

In the past year, employees have filed suits against several companies, including AT&T, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna Corp., claiming they’re missing out on 15-30 minutes of paid time every day because of the time it takes to boot up and log off.

A half-hour sounds like an exaggeration, but assuming the estimate is true, that equals 2.5 hours every week. If someone makes $15 an hour, that’s $37.50 a week and $150 a month the employee could be owed.

Is booting up ‘work’?

It’ll be up to the courts to decide whether waiting for the computers to turn on counts as work.

The companies say workers spend that time getting coffee or having cigarette breaks. But the employees say they’re performing actual work, like organizing materials, doing paperwork or checking their calendars.

Do the employees have a case? Both sides of the debate have some legal history to bolster their sides of the argument:

According to the Supreme Court, workers must be paid for pre- and post-work activities that are “integral and indispensable” to the employees’ duties — such as putting on and taking off protective equipment (Cite: IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez).

However, the Court also refused to overturn a similar suit in which the employees lost because the activities in dispute were “relatively effortless” and took a small enough amount of time to be considered “de minimis” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (Cite: Gormon v. The Consolidated Edison Corp.).

Depending on how the computer cases are decided, they could effect how many companies track hours for nonexempt employees. We’ll keep you posted on the rulings.