Apple Offers $30 Million to Settle Bag-Search Suit

Apple has offered up $30 million to settle a suit that has been ongoing since 2013. Last year, California's supreme court ruled that the company did break the law by failing to pay employees as they waited for bag and iPhone searches after shifts.

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Courthouse News got the proposed settlement, in which Lee Shalov, plaintiff for the attorney, wrote, "This is a significant, non-reversionary settlement reached after nearly eight years of hard-fought litigation."

In 2013, a class of employees sued over Apple's practice of searching employee bags and phones for stolen merchandise or trade secrets while they were off the clock.

Their suit argued they should be paid for the time they spent undergoing security checks, during which time they felt like they were under the "control" of Apple and management. Almost 12,000 current and former Apple Store employees in California stand to receive a payout from the settlement, if the plaintiffs approve it. The maximum payment will be around $1,200.

Apple argued that employees were free to leave their phones at home to avoid searches, but the 2020 ruling against the company shot down that defense: "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," said the judges.