(Reuters) - A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday said he was prepared to rule in favor of a class of 12,000 Apple Inc retail workers in California who say they should have been paid for time spent in security screenings on liability, but allow the company to dispute individual claims on a case-by-case basis.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a telephonic hearing said he planned to grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs in the 2013 lawsuit, about a year after the California Supreme Court ruled that state law requires that workers be paid for time spent in security screenings.

The issue has taken on renewed significance amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as many employers are requiring workers to answer screening questions and have their temperatures taken before beginning shifts.

Last week, Walmart and Amazon were hit with separate lawsuits claiming they failed to pay workers for that time. The plaintiffs in both cases cited last year's ruling in the Apple case in their complaints.

Alsup said he would hold a series of mini-trials on damages, where Apple's lawyers at DLA Piper will have the chance to show that individual class members never waited in security checks, or spent a "de minimis" amount of time waiting for which they do not have to be compensated.

Apple could owe more than $60 million in damages, according to filings in the case.

At Wednesday's hearing, Julie Dunne of DLA Piper, Apple's lead lawyer, did not dispute that the California Supreme Court decision required that summary judgment be entered for the plaintiffs.

But she did urge Alsup to require class members in submitting claim forms to detail the number of times they waited in security checks, and to distinguish between checks performed before breaks and at the end of shifts.

Alsup said that requiring that level of detail could be confusing to class members. He said he would allow workers to estimate how much time they spent waiting to be screened, which can be checked against Apple's employment records, since some of the claims are now more than a decade old.

"I'm not going to require the claimants to figure out every day they stood in line and how long they stood in line; if they gave dates, they would not be telling the truth," Alsup said. "Apple is just out of luck on that point."

Alsup had dismissed the case in 2015, saying the workers were not under the company's control during security checks because they were not required to bring personal items to work that would have to be screened.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in September after the California Supreme Court decision, which answered certified questions from the appeals court.

Lee Shalov of McLaughlin & Stern, who represents the plaintiffs, on Wednesday largely agreed with Alsup's plan for the case. The plaintiffs are also represented by Kimberly Kralowec of Kralowec Law.

Alsup at the hearing also indicated that he was open to extending the class period, which runs to August 2015, to limit the possibility of additional litigation against Apple.

"Someday we'll have this case behind us. Maybe I'll still be alive," the 75-year-old judge said.

The case is Frlekin et al v. Apple Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:13-cv-03451.

For the plaintiffs: Lee Shalov of McLaughlin & Stern; Kimberley Kralowec of Kralowec Law

For Apple: Julie Dunne of DLA Piper