Static educational checklist — not a calculator. No sleep-minute inputs, no 8-hour exclusion engine, no live OT/back-wage math. Spot common sleeping time and 24-hour duty red flags under FLSA Part 785 §§ 785.20–.23. Distinct from on-call/waiting, continuous-workday/report-time, training-time, travel-time, meal/rest, spread-of-hours, tip-credit, recordkeeping, child-labor, and final-paycheck pages.
Federal baseline
On shifts of less than 24 hours, an employee required to be on duty is working even if permitted to sleep — sleep time is generally hours worked. On duty of 24 hours or more, the parties may agree to exclude a bona fide regularly scheduled sleeping period of not more than 8 hours (plus bona fide meals) only if adequate sleeping facilities are furnished and the employee can usually enjoy an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Interruptions count as hours worked; if the employee cannot get at least 5 hours of sleep, the entire scheduled sleep period is working time. Live-in employee rules are related but not identical. This page does not decide compensability for a specific shift or compute premiums.
Checklist — sleep-time & 24-hour duty red flags
Sleep deducted on shifts under 24 hours. Flag policies that auto-exclude nap / quiet hours on 12–16–23 hour tours just because a cot or recliner is available. Under § 785.21, less-than-24 on-duty time is generally hours worked even when the employee is allowed to sleep between calls.
More than 8 hours of sleep excluded on a 24+ tour. Flag “sleep from 22:00–08:00 unpaid” (10 hours) on a 24-hour duty day. Even when the § 785.22 exclusion applies, only up to 8 hours may be credited as non-work sleep; the excess remains hours worked.
No agreement to exclude sleep. Flag silent handbooks and unsigned schedules that still zero out the overnight window. Without an express or implied agreement to exclude the sleeping period, the scheduled sleep hours (and meals) generally count as hours worked.
“Adequate sleeping facilities” stretched to a chair in the bay. Flag unpaid sleep windows where the employee has no private/adequate place to sleep — hallway cot, shared dayroom chair, or vehicle cab treated as a bedroom. Facility quality is part of the § 785.22 test, not a nicety.
Interrupted nights still fully unpaid. Flag sleep windows where callbacks, radio traffic, or patient care routinely break rest, yet the full 8 hours stay off the clock. Interruptions themselves are hours worked; if the employee cannot usually get a reasonable night’s sleep — for enforcement, at least 5 hours — the entire scheduled sleep period is working time.
Live-in residence rules mixed up with 24-hour shift rules. Flag “resident employee” labels slapped on staff who only work multi-day tours and do not reside on the premises, or the reverse. § 785.23 residence / homeworker-style arrangements are related to but distinct from § 785.22 24-hour duty exclusions.
On-call idle treated as free sleep. Flag unpaid “sleep” during engaged-to-wait stretches on shorter tours, or restrictive on-call nights coded as personal time. Sleep-time doctrine does not erase on-call / waiting or continuous-workday analysis.
State / industry overlays ignored (ambulance, domestic, residential care). Flag federal-only sleep deductions for CA ambulance sleep OT, CA live-in domestic / personal-attendant / residential-care OT, NY domestic or miscellaneous residential OT, and similar stricter state rules. Always check the stricter overlay — sleep exclusion on the federal clock can still fail a state OT statute.
Timekeeping hides sleep interruptions. Flag missing punches around night callbacks, radio wake-ups, and early-morning duty starts. Recordkeeping gaps compound sleep-time disputes the same way they compound continuous-day exposure.