Apple Inc. must compensate its California retail store employees for time spent undergoing exit searches of their packages, bags and technology devices, said a federal appeals court Wednesday, in overturning a lower court decision and ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor in the seven-year-old case.

The unanimous three-judge appeals court panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco based its decision on a February ruling by the California Supreme Court, which had been asked by the appeals court to consider the issue, according to the ruling in Amanda Frlekin et al. v. Apple Inc.

Apple’s policy is that all personal packages and bags must be checked by a manager or security before leaving the story, according to the ruling.

Plaintiffs filed suit in the case in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in July 2013, and the court certified the litigation as a class action in July 2015.

The decision applies to all Apple California nonexempt employees who were subject to the bag search policy from July 2019 and who voluntarily brought a bag to work “purely for personal convenience.”

The district court had granted Apple summary judgment dismissing the case in November 2015. In stating plaintiffs must be paid, the California Supreme Court said, “Apple’s exit searches are required as a practical matter, occur at the workplace, involve a significant degree of control, are imposed primarily for Apple’s benefit, and are enforced through threat of discipline.”

“The district had held to the contrary in granting summary judgment to Apple” and accordingly erred, said the appeals court panel, in overturning the lower court’s ruling.

The panel remanded the case to the district court to “determine the remedy to be afforded to individual class members.”

Plaintiff attorney Brett R. Gallaway, a partner with McLaughlin & Stern LLP in New York, said, in a statement, “We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s decision and believe it correctly resolved a long-standing and disputed issue of liability.” Apple did not respond to a request for comment.