*Aharon Katz
The Supreme Court of Maryland Held that the De Minimis Doctrine Applies to the Maryland Wage Laws. Martinez v. Amazon.com Servs. LLC, 338 A.3d 636 (Md. 2025).
I. Introduction
In Martinez v. Amazon.com Services LLC, the Supreme Court of Maryland addressed whether the de minimis doctrine applies to the Maryland Wage Laws.[1] The de minimis doctrine states that “the law does not concern itself with trifles” and has deep roots in common law.[2] The appellant contended that the plain language of the statute indicated that the legislature did not intend for the de minimis rule to become Maryland law.[3] The appellee argued that because the Maryland legislature intended to incorporate federal law into Maryland law, the federal de minimis doctrine applied to Maryland law.[4] The Court ultimately ruled in favor of the appellee, finding the state legislature’s silence indicative of acceptance of federal precedent.[5]
II. Historical Development
A. Federal Laws
In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to eliminate poor working conditions[6] and establish a national minimum wage.[7] The act required employers to pay their employees a minimum wage per hour worked[8] and no less than one and a half times that rate for time worked over forty hours in any given workweek.[9] The FLSA did not define the terms “work” and “workweek.”[10]
The Supreme Court sought to define these terms in the 1946 case of Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Company.[11] The Court defined “workweek” as all the time “during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer’s premises, on duty, or at a prescribed workplace.”[12] However, the Court also held that the FLSA did not preclude the application of a de minimis rule for the small amount of time that employees spent walking to and from their workplaces.[13] According to the Court, the workweek must be calculated “in light of the realities of the industrial world.”[14] Therefore, when the matter at issue concerned mere “seconds or minutes of work, . . . such trifles may be disregarded.”[15]
In response, Congress amended the FLSA via the Portal-to-Portal Act (PPA) to address Anderson’s overly broad definition of workweek.[16] The PPA specified that certain activities, such as walking or traveling to and from the location of the work activity, and other preliminary or postliminary activities, were not included in the workweek.[17] The PPA did not in any way abrogate the de minimis portion of the Anderson decision.[18] In 1961, the federal government once again acknowledged the existence of the de minimis doctrine.[19] A regulation issued by the Department of Labor (DOL) stated that employers may disregard certain “insignificant periods of time” that cannot, as a practical matter, be precisely recorded.[20]
Recently, the Supreme Court held in Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corporation that the de minimis doctrine did not apply to a specific FLSA statute governing employees being paid for time spent changing clothes.[21] In Sandifer, the petitioners argued that, pursuant to their collective bargaining agreement, they should be paid for “time spent donning and doffing protective gear.”[22] The Court held that protective articles of clothing (such as a snood or work gloves) counted as clothes that were not legally compensable under their collective bargaining agreement.[23] However, “time spent donning and doffing” non-clothing items (such as glasses or earplugs) could be compensable.[24] The Court rejected the argument that the non-clothing items were covered by the de minimis doctrine, explaining that the FLSA statute was specifically crafted to compensate the seconds and minutes employees spent changing outfits.[25]
B. Maryland Laws
In 1965 and 1966, the Maryland State Legislature enacted the Maryland Wage and Hour Law (MWHL)[26] and the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law (MWPCL)[27] (collectively, “Maryland Wage Laws”). The Maryland Wage Laws govern minimum wage and the timing of wage payments, among other laws.[28] Both statutes define “wages” as “all compensation that is due to an employee for employment.”[29] The Maryland Wage Laws mirror the FLSA in many ways,[30] most notably by declining to define what counts as compensable “work.”[31]
In Amaya v. DGS Construction, LLC, the Supreme Court of Maryland considered whether Maryland had adopted the federal limitations on compensable work codified in the PPA because the state’s general assembly had remained silent on this issue.[32] The Court answered no.[33] The Court explained that, although Congress enacted the PPA to amend the FLSA,[34] there was no indication that the general assembly intended to incorporate the later-enacted PPA into Maryland law.[35] If that had been the general assembly’s intent, it would not have left such a significant piece of text out of its legislation.[36] While Amaya ruled that the Maryland legislature’s silence regarding the PPA was indicative of its intent to disregard it, the Supreme Court of Maryland had yet to address whether this logic applied to the FLSA in its entirety.[37]
III. Instant Case
A. Facts
Appellee Amazon.com Services LLC (Amazon) employed appellant Estefany Martinez from June 2017 to November 2021.[38] While Martinez was employed, Amazon required its employees to undergo a security screening on their way out of the facility, which they were not compensated for.[39] Martinez retained an expert witness who calculated that—based on the data provided by Amazon—Martinez was owed $161.61 for the time she spent waiting in line for security screenings.[40] Martinez filed suit against Amazon in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City on behalf of herself and a putative class consisting of 23,914 current and former Amazon employees.[41] Amazon removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, which then granted Martinez’s motion for class certification.[42] Amazon moved to dismiss, claiming that time spent waiting in line was de minimis.[43] Because Maryland law lacked clear guidance regarding the de minimis rule, the District Court certified a question to the Supreme Court of Maryland, asking it to clarify Maryland’s approach to this issue.[44]
B. Court’s Analysis
In a majority opinion written by Justice Biran, the Court held that the de minimis doctrine applies to claims brought under the Maryland Wage Laws.[45] The Court first addressed Martinez’s argument that the statute’s definition of “wages” as “all compensation that is due to an employee for employment” indicates that all compensation, no matter how small, is included in the definition of “wages.”[46] The Court dismissed this approach, reasoning that “all” merely operates to describe the payment necessary for whatever is “due”; it does not answer the threshold question of what is, in fact, “due.”[47] The outcome of that question rests on whether the de minimis rule applies.[48]
Having concluded that the plain language of the statute did not indicate whether the de minimis rule applied, the Court turned to other evidence of the legislature’s intent in enacting the Maryland Wage Laws.[49] In that vein, the Court held that because the MWHL was meant to mirror the FLSA,[50] “compensation due” meant whatever compensation was due under the FLSA.[51] Because the MWPCL immediately followed on the heels of the MWHL and used the same definition for “wages,” the Court held that it would be illogical for the MWPCL to refer to something different from the MWHL without the state legislature explicitly saying so.[52] Therefore, any compensation due under the FLSA should be similarly applied to the MWHL and the MWPCL.[53]
Federal law had already recognized the de minimis doctrine by 1946, when the Supreme Court held in Anderson that the FLSA’s labor laws did not “preclude the application of a de minimis rule.”[54] The de minimis doctrine further solidified its place in federal law in 1961, when the DOL issued regulations stating that insignificant amounts of time that cannot be precisely recorded may be disregarded.[55] Because the Maryland Wage Laws mirror the FLSA, which had previously been interpreted to include a de minimis rule, the Supreme Court of Maryland reasoned that the general assembly intended the de minimis doctrine to apply to Maryland legislation as well.[56]
The Court further rejected the argument that this ruling contradicts precedent in Amaya.[57] Amazon argued that while in Amaya the Court held that legislative silence showed no intent to adopt the Portal-to-Portal Act’s exceptions, the Court here was treating the legislature’s silence as acquiescence to the de minimis doctrine.[58] The Court distinguished these two cases as follows: Because the MWHL was created to mirror the original FLSA of 1938, it only made sense that it would incorporate the de minimis rule, “which is part and parcel of the original FLSA.”[59] Conversely, the PPA was an amendment added later and was not an integral part of the original FLSA.[60] Therefore, by mirroring the original FLSA, the Maryland legislature could not be assumed to have adopted the PPA as well.[61] For these reasons, the Court answered the certified question from the District Court in the affirmative, holding that the de minimis doctrine applies to the Maryland Wage Laws.[62]
Justice Watts filed a dissenting opinion along with Justice Eaves.[63] They argued that, absent any de minimis rule in the statutes’ plain language, the words “all compensation that is due” should not be understood as excluding otherwise compensable time.[64] The dissent also referenced Amaya as Maryland precedent because Amaya had ruled that the Maryland legislature’s silence regarding the PPA did not indicate its intent to incorporate it into the Maryland Wage Laws, and there was no reason to treat the de minimis doctrine differently.[65] Furthermore, they explained, considering that the general assembly had demonstrated a long trend of making employment law more employee-friendly,[66] it did not make sense for its silence to be interpreted as a desire to undercut workers’ rights.[67] The dissent also noted that several other state courts, when presented with similar questions, had declined to incorporate the de minimis rule into its legislation.[68] Maryland’s approach contradicts a growing trend among states that have chosen not to adopt the de minimis doctrine into their judicial interpretations.[69]
IV. Analysis
A. The Court’s Holding Insulates Businesses from Lawsuits over Minute Periods of Work Time That Are Difficult, if Not Impossible, to Calculate.
Ever since Anderson, the de minimis doctrine has been applied on the federal level to shield employers from lawsuits over “[s]plit second absurdities.”[70] Although states may raise the standard of wage compensation over the federal minimum, such legislation is not always advisable.[71] Here, the Supreme Court of Maryland established that the Maryland legislature did not intend to provide protections beyond the federal minimum.[72] This decision limits liability for both large and small businesses, which would otherwise need to defend themselves against lawsuits over negligible amounts of time.[73] This decision specifically protects smaller employers who otherwise would not have the technological sophistication to properly track every second of the workday.[74]
B. This Ruling, Although Seemingly Inconsistent with Amaya, Is Distinguishable.
While this decision seems facially incompatible with Amaya’s holding that the PPA does not apply in Maryland, the Court illustrates a critical difference between the two cases.[75] The Court explained that while Maryland’s wage law was modeled after the 1938 FLSA—which implicitly included the de minimis doctrine—it made no indication that it also accepted the later amendments added by the PPA.[76] Therefore, its silence could be interpreted as acquiescence to all the interpretations of the 1938 laws, but not to the PPA amendments.[77]
C. The Court’s Decision Places the Burden of Absorbing the Costs of De Minimis Time on Low-Wage Employees Rather Than on Large Corporations.
The Court explained that, because the de minimis doctrine applied under Maryland law, employees of larger businesses would receive no greater protection than employees of smaller businesses.[78] While this is logical on a certain level, its practical effect is to shift the cost of uncompensated work time from large corporations to low-income employees.[79] This is true even if large corporations have access to advanced tracking technology.[80] As Martinez argued in her brief, a company as large and technologically sophisticated as Amazon, which is capable of tracking the most minute movements of millions of packages worldwide, can surely find a way to calculate the time its employees spend in a security screening.[81] This anecdote illustrates that even when companies have the resources to calculate and compensate de minimis time, they are not required to do so under Maryland law.[82]
D. This Ruling Goes Against the Modern Trend from Other Jurisdictions.
As the dissent points out, this ruling contradicts a growing trend among jurisdictions nationwide that have been reluctant to apply a de minimis rule to legislation that has not explicitly stated it.[83] While the majority found the cases from other jurisdictions distinguishable,[84] these cases still underline a growing trend away from this doctrine, which the Supreme Court of Maryland has now embraced.[85]
V. Conclusion
The Supreme Court of Maryland’s ruling in Martinez v. Amazon.com Services LLC provides protection to employers regarding de minimis time.[86] The majority’s analysis turned on the general assembly’s intent to mirror the original FLSA and its subsequent interpretations.[87] The result is the adoption of a more streamlined approach that makes it easier for employers to keep track of work time.[88] This will especially benefit smaller employers who otherwise may not have the resources to track such time.[89] The consequence of this approach is that employees will now be forced to absorb the loss of extra seconds and minutes that are harder to calculate.[90]
* Aharon Katz is a second-year evening student at the University of Baltimore School of Law and serves as a staff editor for Volume 56 of the University of Baltimore Law Review. During the day, he participates in a scholarly postgraduate program that studies Jewish law. Aharon spent the summer of 2026 as a Summer Associate for Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin, and Gibber, P.A. In his free time, Aharon enjoys playing tennis, reading, and spending time with his wife and three children.
[1] 338 A.3d 636, 638 (Md. 2025).
[2] Id. at 655 (Watts J., dissenting) (citing Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024)).
[3] See infra text accompanying note 46.
[4] See infra text accompanying notes 50–56.
[5] Id.
[6] 29 U.S.C. § 202.
[7] Id. § 206(a).
[8] Id.
[9] Id. § 207(a).
[10] Martinez v. Amazon.com Servs. LLC, 338 A.3d 636, 642 (Md. 2025).
[11] See generally 328 U.S. 680 (1946) (defining terms “work” and “workweek”).
[12] Id. at 690–91.
[13] Id. at 692.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] Amaya v. DGS Constr., LLC, 278 A.3d 1216, 1234 n.14 (Md. 2022) (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 251); see also Martinez, 338 A.3d at 643–44 (explaining that Anderson’s rule creating liability for employers for the time they spent walking to and from their workplaces, motivated Congress to pass the PPA to limit that liability).
[17] 29 U.S.C. § 254(a).
[18] See supra note 16 and accompanying text.
[19] See 29 C.F.R. § 785.47 (1961).
[20] Id.
[21] 571 U.S. 220, 234 (2014); 29 U.S.C. § 203(o) (“In determining . . . the hours for which an employee is employed, there shall be excluded any time spent in changing clothes . . . which was excluded . . . under a bona fide collective-bargaining agreement. . . .”).
[22] See Sandifer, 571 U.S. at 223 (arguing that protective gear is not “clothes”).
[23] Id. at 233.
[24] Id.
[25] Id. at 234 (“A de minimis doctrine does not fit comfortably within the statute at issue here. . . [as] there is no more reason to disregard the minute or so necessary to put on glasses, earplugs, and respirators, than there is to regard the minute or so necessary to put on a snood.”).
[26] Md. Code Ann. Lab. & Empl. §§ 3-401 to 3-431 (2026).
[27] Id. §§ 3-501 to 3-509.
[28] See Martinez v. Amazon.com Servs. LLC, 338 A.3d 636, 645 (Md. 2025).
[29] Lab. & Empl. §§ 3-401(d); 3-501(c)(1).
[30] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 650.
[31] Id. at 645.
[32] 278 A.3d 1216.
[33] Id. at 1239–40.
[34] See supra note 16 and accompanying text.
[35] Amaya v. DGS Constr., LLC, 278 A.3d 1216, 1240 (Md. 2022).
[36] Id.
[37] See infra text accompanying note 44.
[38] Martinez v. Amazon.com Servs. LLC, 338 A.3d 636, 639 (Md. 2025).
[39] Id.
[40] Id. at 641.
[41] Id. at 655.
[42] Id. at 641.
[43] Id.
[44] Id.
[45] Id. at 638–39.
[46] Id. at 649.
[47] Id. at 650.
[48] Id.
[49] Id.
[50] See, e.g., Marshall v. Safeway, Inc., 88 A.3d 735, 744 (Md. 2014) (describing portions of the MWHL as “the Maryland equivalent of [the] FLSA”); Martinez, 338 A.3d at 650 (“[W]hen the General Assembly enacted the MWHL in 1965, it replicated many of the FLSA’s features – such as setting a minimum wage, requiring employers to preserve employment records, and protecting employees from retaliation for whistleblowing.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
[51] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 651.
[52] Id. at 652 n.9.
[53] Id.
[54] See supra Section II.A.
[55] See supra Section II.A.
[56] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 652.
[57] Id.
[58] Id.; see supra Section II.B.
[59] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 652.
[60] Id.
[61] Id.
[62] Id. at 655.
[63] See id. at 655–75 (Watts, J., dissenting).
[64] See id. at 658–61.
[65] Id. at 672.
[66] See id. at 661–65; see, e.g., Friolo v. Frankel, 819 A.2d 354, 363–64 (Md. 2003) (explaining that in response to difficulties in enforcing the MWHL and MWPCL, the Maryland legislature adopted a policy that if an employee won an unpaid wage claim where the wages were not withheld due to a bona fide dispute, the court would automatically award treble damages, even though the majority of claims were for between $150 and $200).
[67] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 661 (Watts, J., dissenting) (asserting that laws ensuring that employees are fairly compensated for all the work they have performed “spans the laws’ approximately sixty-year history.”).
[68] See id. at 667–70. See, e.g., In re Amazon.com, Inc., 255 A.3d 191, 193 (Pa. 2021) (“[T]here exists no de minimis exception to the [Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act]”); Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 421 P.3d 1114, 1120 (Cal. 2018) (“Nothing in the language of the [California] wage orders or Labor Code shows an intent to incorporate the federal de minimis rule [as] articulated in Anderson.”).
[69] See Martinez, 338 A.3d at 667–70 (Watts, J., dissenting).
[70] See id. at 654 (majority opinion) (quoting Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 692 (1946)).
[71] See id. at 659 (Watts, J., dissenting) (citing Lab. & Emp. § 3-413(b)).
[72] See id. at 651–52 (majority opinion).
[73] See id. at 654.
[74] See also id. (stating that the Maryland Wage Laws equally “apply to employers of all sizes and that have access to varying levels of technology and other resources.”).
[75] See id. at 652.
[76] Id.
[77] Id.
[78] Id. at 654.
[79] See id. at 674 (Watts, J., dissenting).
[80] See id. (majority opinion).
[81] Id. at 653–54.
[82] Id. at 654.
[83] See supra note 68 and accompanying text.
[84] Martinez, 338 A.3d at 653.
[85] See also In re Amazon.com, Inc., 255 A.3d 191, 208 (Pa. 2021) (asserting that in light of the Sandifer decision, even the Supreme Court’s “view of the relevance of the de minimis doctrine in the interpretation of the federal FLSA going forward is no longer certain.”).
[86] See supra Section IV.A.
[87] See supra Section III.B.
[88] See supra Section IV.A.
[89] See id.
[90] See supra Section IV.C.
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