It's not so much what makes sense - I think the vast majority, if not everyone, on HN would agree that it makes sense to pay an employee if they are required to perform a particular time-consuming security screening while on the work site as part of their job. The question is, what does the law say - and, rather than have judges go against the law, and do what they think makes sense, the proper approach is to change the law.
Equity stands on equal footing with law in the Constitution, and is often more efficient. Specific performance in paying the back wages and and injunction against further shenanigans is an equally viable approach.
It's worth reflecting on the fact that people on the more powerful side of asymmetrical contract relationships are often motivated to do whatever they can get away with, and the absence of a sufficiently specific law is often treated as a license to shift a cost burden onto the weaker party. The problem with your approach is endless multiplication, specification, and complexity of law, which drives up the cost of getting into a legal dispute for everyone.
The problem with the opposite approach is "legislating from the bench", which leads to legal uncertainty and comes with plenty of its own problems. That complexity you mentioned doesn't go away, it just gets shifted into case law instead of statutory law.
Law isn't complex just for the benefit of lawyers.
Correct. In the end the US needs better laws to protect workers. It’s not good that basic things like this need to be decided by the court. Seems that’s in line with the general trend that congress leaves more and more decisions up to the courts instead of clarifying the laws.
Entirely fair. The court needs to rule based on what's in the law, not what's fair (unless it's clearly unconstitutional). Fair is the responsibility of legislators.
Article II, section 2:
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;
Now, this particular suit was presumably brought to court on a legal rather than equitable basis, but courts are in fact empowered to consider cases on the latter basis.
